Ladi’Sasha Jones: In your book No New Theories (2019), there are incredible movements between the pages, illustrated by different printing techniques, marks of redaction and repetition, and geometric gestures; I love all of these notations and the way they are spatialized within the frame of the page. It was just so beautiful. As I made my way through the book, I kept thinking,  she’s creating these beautiful and abstract conceptual indices around the spatial economy of text as an enduring site for learning. For this upcoming book, what is the meeting between indices and architecture?

Kameelah Janan Rasheed: An index gathers and holds (1) […] My work sort of moves between gathering (2) and dispersing (3). I love the process of pulling things together […] Because I have so much fun with this process, I imagine you will also have fun pulling them together, so I’m going to invite you into this process. Maybe my installations are an index that I have dispersed across space and time to invite other people along in our process, hoping they will add to the index; it is longitudinal work – an ongoing index. 

(1) I think about architecture similarly – something that allows for gathering and holding within a moment or context.

(2) al-Jāmi’ (one of the 99 names of Allah) –  jim-mim-ayn (ج م ع), which has the following meanings: to collect or gather, bring together, to contract, assemble or congregate, unite or connect or form a connection, bring into a state of union, reconcile or conciliate, put on a thing [such as clothing article], to compose/arrange/settle, to pray in congregation, determine/resolve/decide upon a thing, agree or unite in opinion, prepare or make a thing ready, dry up a thing, conspire or league with another, coexist with one, to be compact/compressed/contracted, exert one’s energy, to compromise or comprehend or contain, enter or go into, to meet or be in company with another.

(3) al-Bāsit (one of the 99 names of Allah) – ba-sin-ta (ب س ط), which has the following meanings: spreading, spreading out or forth, expanding, making wide or ample, stretching forth, extending and/or dilating