Kameelah Janan Rasheed @kameelahr was born in 1985 in Palo Alto, California to Sunni Muslim parents. In 1997, at the age of 12 years old, she and her family were unlawfully evicted from their home because of increasing land prices in the area. For the next ten years, she and her family entered a period of homelessness that would eventually lead to an interest in collecting and archiving. Kameelah studied at Pomona College for her undergraduate degree, graduating with a degree in public policy and Africana. After completing her degree, she was awarded a Fulbright to study in South Africa and upon her return to the US, she began her graduate studies at Stanford University. While she lived in South Africa, Kameelah became interested in documentation & interviewing. From this interest, her first immersive installation was born entitled “No Instructions for Assembly, Activation”, which consisted of 600 objects, including memorabilia from her family, like prayer rugs, prayer beads, and tufts of family members’ hair. Following her first installation, Kameelah has created a number of art works, including “How to Suffer Politely (And Other Etiquette)”. The series is made up of billboard size yellow posters with bold black font with slogans declaring ways “to suffer politely”. The work speaks to the Black Lives Matter movement & the way Black people are told to respond to the police killings of unarmed Black people. She has been awarded a number of fellowships & residences, that have taken her across the country from New York to Iowa to Oregon. Kameelah is currently based in Brooklyn and is a contributing editor for The New Inquiry and the Arts Editor for Spooks Magazine.