Featured Artist: Zakkiyyah Najeebah
as told to Asha Iman Veal, for Arts Alliance Illinois (June 2020)
(photo of Zakkiyyah Najeebah, by Miguel Limon)
As a human first, followed by my identity as an artist, I’ve been encouraged by this moment to truly look inward and meditate on the curiosities and desires that feel the most pertinent to me.
In regard to building differently in the future, this is very literal for me as I’ve actually been thinking about building with materials—working with my hands—and building works on paper. World making and world building come to mind.
Collectively, I’m in the process of working on a digital curatorial project that reflects my feelings about the future being ‘something else…’ and working with others who are thinking of new ways to discuss art and uplift art making that is more about projecting new possibilities.
I’m also working with my collective Concerned Black Image Makers to build virtual programming with folks outside of Chicago who are also expressing concerns regarding Black image making and its place within and outside of the art world.
Zakkiyyah Najeebah
visual artist, educator, curator
(L - Felicia, R - Kamilah / selections from WE THE VANGUARD, 2016 - present, a photographic archive of black women and femmes who are shifting the contemporary culture of Chicago…)
My artistic practice over the years has evolved through photo, video, collage, and more recently drawing.
Earlier on in my practice and as recent as last year, my work has been mostly representational (centered on Black women) through photography and video. At the beginning of this year though and during quarantine, I’ve been thinking a lot about abstraction, architecture, physical space, poetics, and making work with my hands (drawing and building). There’s a quoted reference to the poet Dionne Brand I came across, ‘Sometimes, the narrative isn’t enough, we need other things…’ and it’s been a meditation for me that I keep coming back to.
I had already been feeling somewhat tired from making representational/narrative centered work, and was dealing with internal conflict about evolving out of that for a while. As a young Black artist, there's a lot of pressure to make ‘representational’ work, and although I'm grateful to have made that work—I'm in need of ‘something else’ and feel myself evolving into a space where I feel more confident about experimentation and following my love of abstraction. I feel you put it really beautiful and honest here, ‘feeling an experience and a connection of the mind, through imaginations and re-visions, and the dances that live inside of our bodies and heads.…’
(L - LaKeisha, R - Meida)
I was able to reclaim some of that when I started making a set of charcoal drawings late last year and these experiences are where I desire most to return to. I honestly feel this time has allowed me to fall into this space and explore it more rigorously, but also playfully at the same time. The ways that I’m thinking about re-visioning and feeling, really feeling from within, can open up new pathways for me as an artist, but also build out fruitful dialogues and work with others.
I’ve been slowly activating this via journaling, dialogues with other artists, reading, loose drawing, and collecting poetry/quotes. The times feel very abstract, and the future feels abstract but everything also feels so open right now.
(L - Scheherazade, R - Sheridan)
The self-directed desire to make, was actually a way to overcome this fear of not being what I thought a traditional artist was.
Like most folks, I had a very contained idea of what an ‘artist’ was. I was never confident in practicing the traditional art forms I was introduced to in school such as drawing and painting. So the artistic sensibilities, a deep love for art, was always present but taking on that identity didn’t seem to fit at the time. I majored in Art History for undergrad studies and was actually set on working towards becoming a curator. It was through my comprehensive study of art that inspired me to actually practice it for myself. So, my path into an arts practice was non-traditional in that way.
I found my activation through photography, and studying the history of Black photographers more specifically. This was another nudge to buy a camera and just start making. So that’s what I set out to do, and I fell in love with making images, with people. Later on, making images more specifically centering Black Queer women.
(L - Tempestt, R - Ladan)
My practice was in a way both formally and informally guided by particular histories and through academia. Informally more, because I’m self-taught and never majored in art as a ‘practice.’ I also was not intending to have a career as an artist earlier on when I was making…I just really wanted to activate my ideas and thought process, while using art making as a tool. Six years later, here I am fully dedicated as an artist and proudly claiming that for myself while also allowing myself to evolve in my work.
Again, back when I was younger, I was always of course dabbling in art making and activating creativity—whether it was pastels or loose sketching, but throughout my childhood and teenage years I never thought of myself as an ‘artist’ per say. I was actually always looking at artists work through books and at museums.
(L -Coriama, R-Sam)
The potential of experiencing art more privately, outside of institutions, actually feels very exciting right now. There’s been a lot of ways that some of us have had to slow down and be guided by intuition, more than strategy or productivity. Most institutions don’t share artworks and exhibitions with slowness in mind, as there’s timelines, budgets, and audiences to adhere to amongst other things. There are also some artists who adhere to this as well.
With all of this in mind, myself and other artists and arts workers have always been finding ways to share art or experience it outside of institutions. I think the current moment might spark even more of an urgency to do so. I’ve been thinking a lot about the potential of site-specific works that can be mobile, or encountering and sharing art in the digital space, in a way that is still thoughtful and tugs at our emotions and imaginations.
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