Kameelah Janan Rasheed is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist, writer, and former public schoo

Kameelah Janan Rasheed is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist, writer, and former public school teacher who describes herself as a “learner first.” Her exploratory approach embraces unfinished, in-process thinking over easy interpretations—or “readings”—prompting the questions: Are we reading closely? Are we reading with care? For the artist, close reading is an exercise to hone attention and engagement as well as a strategy for liberation, particularly in respect to Black experiences.Read Closely In her November artist talk at the Brooklyn Museum, Kameelah Janan Rasheed explored what it means to read closely. Rasheed cited, among other influences, an idea put forth by literary theorist Umberto Eco: Texts are filled with gaps, and readers must do the work of filling them in, taking what Eco calls “inferential walks,” to derive meaning. Rasheed’s artwork “Are You Reading Closely?” visualizes these gaps. At the top of the banner, a constellation of words and phrases float on a black background, seemingly cut out or isolated from another source. A large hand further obscures the text, blocking numerous words from view. Viewers are asked to contend both with the words on the page and with the space between them: What do these fragmented words and phrases, disconnected from their original contexts, bring to mind? How might they be related? What other words, images, and ideas come to mind as you try to connect the dots? Rasheed’s work is a reminder that all texts have holes; reading closely requires us to mind the gaps, and pay attention to how we fill them in.Reflection by Michael RebackKameelah Janan Rasheed (American, born 1985). Are You Reading Closely? (detail), 2020. Vinyl. © Kameelah Janan Rasheed. (Photo: Courtesy of the artist) ⇨ Installation view [Detail], Kameelah Janan Rasheed: Are We Reading Closely? Brooklyn Museum, November 11, 2020–January 10, 2021. (Photo: Jonathan Dorado) -- source link

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