CalArts REDCAT
Fund: $26,000
Through performances, exhibitions, screenings, and literary events, REDCAT introduces diverse audiences, students, and artists to the most influential developments in the arts from around the world, and gives artists in the Los Angeles region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature. REDCAT upholds and expands the mission of CalArts by encouraging experimentation, discovery, and lively civic discourse in the vibrant arts hub of downtown Los Angeles.
REDCAT has commissioned a new exhibition by artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed, titled i want to climb inside every word and lick the salty neck of each letter (on view March 27-August 11, 2024). Rasheed’s first major solo exhibition in Los Angeles repositions her as an artistic voice from California, including work that explores the interspecies, interspiritual, and language-rich environment in which she grew up. Born in 1985 in East Palo Alto, an important city in the history of Black radical politics and pedagogy, Rasheed is a former child website coder, high school teacher, and a self-described “learner”. The exhibition presents an immersive constellation of letters, words and non-words, moving images, body gestures, rituals, and sounds that engage the erotics of reading and writing and transgress the limits of linguistic description.