Image: National Academy of Design, New York
The National Academy of Design will present 'In Praise of Noise', an emergent lecture-performance led by Kameelah Janan Rasheed, on July 1, 2026, from 6 to 8 pm. The event is listed as taking place at the National Academy of Design in New York, with admission free and reservations required. The Academy’s summer-programs email and Eventbrite listing both describe the work as a performance centered on noise, perception, and forms of knowledge that exceed standard intelligibility.
According to the event description, 'In Praise of Noise' explores the “generative and radical potential of noise” by listening for what escapes the signal and standard perception. The language of the program frames noise not as a problem to be solved but as a productive condition, one linked to latency, misalignment, and ectopia. In the description, those presumed failures become a method for considering alternative ways of knowing. The event also resists what the Academy text calls “coherence and immediacy,” instead turning toward being out of sync, non-compliant, and excessive.
Rasheed’s participation situates the program within a broader practice that crosses art, writing, pedagogy and institutional experimentation. The Academy’s email describes her as a learner and a death doula in training. It also notes that she received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2021 and a Creative Capital Award in 2022, and that she has had exhibitions worldwide. The email adds that she is a full-time critic at Yale University’s School of Art and the inaugural Charles Gaines Chair at CalArts. Through KJR Studios, she founded The Little Octopus School and Orange Tangent Study, both described as initiatives centered on collaborative learning and institutional experimentation.
The event arrives as part of a summer schedule the National Academy of Design is circulating alongside other public programs. The Academy’s mailing says it is celebrating its 200th anniversary of advocating for the arts, celebrating the role of artists and architects in public life, and serving as a catalyst for cultural conversations. In that context, 'In Praise of Noise' appears as one of several programs used to activate the institution’s current exhibition and public-facing calendar.
The source material does not identify the lecture-performance as a gallery exhibition or a staged production with a fixed set; instead, it is presented as an “emergent lecture-performance,” emphasizing process and thought rather than a finished theatrical format. The text also underscores sound and interruption as conceptual tools, focusing on “dispersal” rather than cohesion. Those terms frame the program’s interest in methods that are sustained over time rather than treated as episodic acts of refusal.
The event listing gives the practical details succinctly: Wednesday, July 1, 2026, 6-8 pm, at the National Academy of Design, 519 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10001. The reservation notice states that admission is free but RSVPs are required. An accompanying image credit in the Academy email identifies the visual reference as Kameelah Janan Rasheed’s 'we leak, we exceed', an installation view at Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, in 2025, photographed by Jonathan Vanderweit and courtesy of the artist.
