upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024
Board member Rasheedah Phillips and Camae Ayewa (LTA '15, ACG '07) through Black Quantum Futurism present Black Womxn Temporal on November 1 - 28 at the Painted Bride.
November 1 – November 28
Wednesday – Friday | 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Considering the unique, intersectional temporal experiences of Black women, femmes, non-binary folks, and girls and the ways in which we are being actively erased from the objective, linear future, the Black Womxn Temporal Portal is a sculptural portal/booth that serves as a temporary temporal sanctuary for self-identified Black women, femmes, nonbinary folks, and girls. The portal activates the plural, subjective, and quantum nature of the future(s) where Black women, femmes, girls, and nonbinary folks exist and are safe, loved, and valued. The portal contains an open access, interactive nonlinear timescape/tapestry/temporal map/toolkit of Black womanist temporal rituals and tech preparing us for Black quantum womanist future(s).
The portal also exists as a web-based platform at www.blackwomxntemporal.net
Formed in 2014, Black Quantum Futurism is an interdisciplinary creative practice between Camae Ayewa and Rasheedah Phillips, based in Philadelphia. BQF weave quantum physics, Afrofuturism, and Afrodiasporic concepts of time, ritual, text, and sound to present innovative works and tools offering practical ways to escape negative temporal loops, oppression vortexes and the digital matrix. In 2016, BQF founded Community Futures Lab, a community arts space in North Philadelphia. BQF is a 2018 Velocity Fund Grantee, 2018 Solitude & ZKM Web Resident, 2017 Center for Emerging Visual Artists Fellow, 2017 Pew Fellow, 2016 A Blade of Grass Fellow, and a 2015 artist-in-residence at Neighborhood Time Exchange, West Philadelphia. BQF has presented, exhibited and performed at Red Bull Arts, New York; Serpentine Galleries, London; Philadelphia Art Museum; Open Engagement; MOMA PS1, New York; Bergen Kunsthall; Le Gaite Lyrique, Paris; and Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo, among others.
Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother) is a musician, poet, visual artist and workshop facilitator, and has performed at numerous festivals, colleges, galleries and museums around the world, sharing the stage with King Britt, Roscoe Mitchell, Claudia Rankine, bell hooks and more. Camae is a vocalist in three collaborative performance groups: Irreversible Entanglements, Moor Jewelry and 700bliss. In late 2016, she released her debut album Fetish Bones on Don Giovanni Records, and in 2017 she released The Motionless Present, commissioned by The Vinyl Factory x CTM. Recent festival performances include Borealis, CTM Festival, Le Guess Who?, Unsound Festival, Flow Festival, Rewire and Donaufestival.
Rasheedah Phillips, Esq. is a Philadelphia-based public interest attorney, artist, cultural producer, and writer. Rasheedah’s writing has appeared in Keywords for Radicals, Villanova Law Review, The Funambulist Magazine, and other publications. Rasheedah is the founder of The AfroFuturist Affair, a founding member of Metropolarity Queer Spec Fic Collective, co-founder of Black Quantum Futurism, and co-creator of the award-winning Community Futures Lab, . Phillips is a recipient of the National Housing Law Project 2017 Housing Justice Award, 2017 City & State Pennsylvania 40 under 40 Rising Star award, and 2018 Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity. She is the self-published author of Recurrence Plot (and Other Time Travel Tales) (2014), and the editor of the anthologies Black Quantum Futurism: Theory & Practice Vol. I (2015) and Space-Time Collapse I: From the Congo to the Carolinas (2016).
