“What time is it?” probed Rasheedah Phillips, one half of the Philadelphia-based collective Black Quantum Futurism, who together with collaborator Camae Defstar, delivered a charged performance interrogating the political nature of temporal consciousness at Artists Space on July 14th, 2016. Comparing the Western linear time construct with the general indigenous African time consciousness, Black Quantum Futurism’s performance traced the roots of white Southern slave masters using time as a form of social control, unraveling the ways time continues to confine us, especially those on the edges, margins, and intersections of society, in an effort to imagine new possibilities. “Out of the dust of the crumbling institutions of science,” Phillips proclaimed, “comes […] Black Quantum Futurism, a new science for a new world of our own making.”

Black Quantum Futurism performed during an evening curated by Topical Cream. The event also featured Bronx-based rapper Quay Dash, Middle Eastern songstress LAFAWNDAH in collaboration with writer Amy Zimmer, experimental noise duo MSHR, and a soundscape by post-trance producer DOSS. See full documentation of all the performances hosted by Artists Space and check out photos below by Walter Wlodarczyk.