Black Quantum Futurism, Masha Godovannaya, Yevgeniy Fiks, Andréa Stanislav, Axel Straschnoy, Driant Zeneli
Curator: Maria Veits
Israeli Center for Digital Art, 4 Ha'Amoraim Street, Holon, Israel
February 22 - May 23, 2020
Opening reception: February 22, 20.00
Exhibition working hours: Tuesdays 4 - 8 pm, Wednesdays and Thursdays 2 - 6 pm, Saturdays 11 am - 3 pm
Admission is free
Off to Space: Countenarrating the Cosmos is a group exhibition bringing together works by 6 international artists and collectives dealing with contested narratives, public history and turbulent contemporary political contexts by analyzing and revisiting space exploration strategies that started in the 20th century as attempts to widen geopolitical influence, accumulate power and make utopian futures possible.
Today’s environmental, political and economic crisis alongside global colonial ambitions that stretch to other planets instigate a new spiral turn of the space race, which is joined by new large players on the political arena. In this context revisiting the space programs of the Cold War era and the politics behind them allows for deeper understanding of the past, amplifying its untold stories and voices and thinking of alternative futures. Aimed to expand the possibilities and powers of humanity the space programs have been and remain a form of political and ideological battles both between and within societies producing them since they are closely connected to the issues of power, race, ethnicity, identity, and gender struggles, territory division and inequality.
Addressing various forms of cosmisms and counterfuturisms, the presented works - videos, prints, collages and installations - balance between facts and fiction, sci-fi and mockumentary and often juxtaposу an individual story to collective history. Using events or phenomena set in the past, the exhibited works, however, have a definite connection with the contemporary moment and global political processes including migration and refugee crisis, growing antisemitism and new strategies of exile, feminist movement, postcolonial discourse of reclaiming the past and the future. By creating counterhistories they deal with the issues of displaced identities and articulate cases of voice dispossession thus bringing historical justice to silenced communities and individuals. Presenting space exploration from positions of ethnic minorities, women, animals, small communities, dependent economies and displaying how affected space representations have always been by current dominant ideologies and political visions, the exhibition becomes a platform for discovering a variety of counterfuturisms and temporalities and offers artistic ways of reclaiming displaced stories and representations of the past and future.
HASH Award Ceremony Program
Fri, February 21, 2020, 3–10pm
ZKM | Media Theater, free admission
With Tegan Bristow, Johanna Bruckner, Daphne Dragona, Jonas Lund, Mary Maggic, Nicolas Maigret, Rasheedah Phillips, Dani Ploeger, Léa Porré, Tiare Ribeaux, Marloes de Valk, and others
3pm
Talks and short presentations on the call topics:
Ghosted, Refiguring the Feminist Future, and Planetary Glitch
4:15pm
Performance on the project The Future(s) Are Black Quantum Womanist
by Rasheedah Phillips
4:45pm
Talks and short presentations on the open call topics:
Rigged Systems, Engineering Care, and Violent Consumer Media
6pm
Performance on the project Molecular Sex & Synthetic Love
by Johanna Bruckner
7pm
HASH Award Ceremony
8:30pm
Get-together
The Web Residencies program is supported by the Ministry for Science, Research and the Arts of the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The prize money for the HASH is donated by the Foundation of the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg.
The Past longing for the Present that will be the Future! The voices of our future ancestors alive in Moor Mother and Black Quantum Futurist who are interdisciplinary creatives, unraveling the Past-Present-Future-Time which is always NOW!
Camae Ayewa A.K.A. Moor Mother and Rasheedah Phillips A.K.A. Black Quantum Futurist will weave quantum physics, afrofuturism, and Afrodiasporic concepts of time, ritual, text, and sound that present innovative thoughts and music; a vehicle for current matters and tools for practical ways to escape negative temporal loops, oppression vortexes, and the digital matrix.
Nona Hendryx A.K.A. ‘Cyboracle’ will host a conversation with Black Quantum Futurist, Moor Mother and perform with Mi.mu Gloves and other wearable music controllers.
Prizm opens Miami Art Week with an experiential evening featuring culinary delights from our hospitality partner Copper Door, and keynote “Loving the Arts: Building Audiences, Established and New, in our Contemporary Landscape”, with arts marketing and communications impresario and founder of ESP Inc, Tiana Webb Evans in conversation with Bahia Ramos, Director of Arts at the Wallace Foundation, and artfully completed with Black Quantum Futurism (Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother) and Rasheedah Phillips, Esq.) presented by Philadelphia Contemporary
Sep 19, 2019
Black Quantum Futurism will present an installation of Community Futures Lab at the Chicago Architecture Biennial
https://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/current/contributors/black_quantum_futurism
An exhibition as a series of trainings for a future of being together otherwise, convened with a multitude of collaborators by Jeanne van Heeswijk and BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht . Featuring ALl Time is Local Installation by Black Quantum Futurism and upcoming trainings Nov. 21-23.
Trainings for the Not-Yet takes place at BAK until 12 January 2020. The weekly trainings have now officially kicked off: gatherings during which visitors, artists, (inter)national guests, Utrechters, and local initiatives collectively think through and enact (alternatives for) the future. Many trainings culminate in weekly public programs, usually at the weekend. In this newsletter we highlight some of these upcoming trainings and public programs.
Nov 09, 2019
BQF at Valongo Festival
Formed in Philadelphia, United States, the black quantum futurism is a platform for interdisciplinary practice created by camae ayewa and Rasheedah Philips. Building on books, performances, experimental music projects, facilities, movies and educational programs, the project is defined as an initiative, of a theoretical and practical character, which aims to experience reality through the manipulation of space-time, End of designing possible future. The action is based on a framework that includes principles and qualities of quantum physics, speculative and visionary methodologies, as well as dimensions on consciousness, time and space of the cultural traditions of thought black. From the multitude of possible future and the understanding of a non-linear time, the practice of bqf as an exercise of political imagination allows us to see the future and, above all, provides tools to change it, change it or improve it .
After going through important contemporary art spaces, such as moma, serpentine gallery and some biennial, at his seminar at #valongo19, will present us the principles and methods of the bqf, so that it helps us manipulate time and See the future
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
Two events related to the portal's unveiling will take place:
Activation, Pt. 00: Black Womxn Temporal Portal
FIRST FRIDAY RECEPTION, NOVEMBER 1, 2019, 5-7pm at the Painted Bride Art Center
Activation, Pt. 01: Daylight Saving Time Epilogue
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 3, 2019, 3-6pm at the Painted Bride Art Center - Invite Only Event (invites will be sent via email)
Sep 13 – Nov 2, 2019 / Opening Sep 12 @ 7:00pm
Artist Talk/Workshop Sept 14 3-5pm
Performance Sept 14 8pm
Both events are free
Black Quantum Futurism (BQF) is a multidisciplinary collaboration between artists Camae Ayewa and Rasheedah Phillips. Through their videos, publications, collages, sculptures, performances, and discursive events, BQF engage in community-based projects that draw from quantum physics and Black/Afrodiasporic cultural traditions of consciousness, time, and space. For this exhibition, BQF will present a body of their recent work that questions how we can manipulate and collapse space-time in order to imagine, see, and make manifest future realities in the present.
Their exhibition will be complemented by a workshop/artist talk that further engages with BQF’s interest in DIY time travel. For their talk, they’ll be joined by Adam Rudder from the Hogan’s Alley Society, who will act as a respondent and speak to the work they do with Vancouver’s Black community. Following that afternoon talk, Black Quantum Futurism will make a performance at 8pm on Saturday September 14.
This second night of programming for 'Towards a Black Testimony' features artist talks and a performance by Black Quantum Futurism.
For the Saturday events go to: Towards a Black Testimony and 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙮 Towards a Black Testimony.
In 'Towards a Black Testimony', the London-based artistic and curatorial duo Languid Hands (comprised of Imani Robinson and Rabz Lansiquot) brings together artists, thinkers, writers, listeners and speakers, wanderers and wonderers, to explore the complexity of Black Testimony. In the exhibition space of Stroom Den Haag, Languid Hands will present their new moving image work 'Towards a Black Testimony: Prayer, Protest, Peace' (commissioned by Jerwood Arts, London, UK). The work will be on view at Stroom from 26 October until 20 December 2019.
Drawing on archival imagery, Black geographies, and the dying declarations of Black Martyrs, the 40-minute film examines Black Testimony as obscured, ignored and undermined. This work borrows its subtitle - Prayer, Protest, Peace - from the third track on jazz drummer and composer Max Roach's 1960 album We Insist! which features jazz vocalist Abbey Lincoln. Using this composition as the underlying structure for the film itself, Languid Hands presents three chapters or mediations on death and dying and consider the im/possibility of Black Testimony. The script draws from a variety of well and lesser known Black texts, weaving the audience through a performative lecture written and delivered by Imani Robinson and carefully annotated by Rabz Lansiquot's archival exploration.
Schedule for Sunday 27 October 2019
17:00-17:45 hrs
Artist round table featuring Camae Ayewa, Rasheedah Phillips, Rebecca Bellantoni, Shenece Oretha, Rabz Lansiquot, and Imani Robinson.
17:45-18:30 hrs
Break
18:30-19:30 hrs
Black Quantum Futurism performance (title TBC)
Black Quantum Futurism is a collaboration between Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother) & Rasheedah Phillips. They will present an immersive performance in response to the themes of Towards a Black Testimony of which sound is a central element. Their performances include voice, the live composition of electronic music and noise, film and three dimensional setting. BQF is a new approach to living and experiencing reality by way of the manipulation of space-time in order to see into possible futures, and/or collapse space-time into a desired future in order to bring about that future’s reality. This vision and practice derives its facets, tenets, and qualities from quantum physics and Black/African cultural traditions of consciousness, time, and space.
https://www.blackquantumfuturism.com