Black Quantum Futurism Presents Time Zone Protocols at Leeum Museum of Art

This September, the Leeum Museum of Art hosts Time Zone Protocols, a groundbreaking project by Black Quantum Futurism, the Philadelphia-based collective known for its innovative interdisciplinary art practice. Running from September 4th to 28th, 2025 at the M2, the exhibition is part of the museum’s Idea Museum series, supported by the CHANEL Culture Fund, and invites visitors to rethink the experience of time and history through the lens of Black diasporic and African cultural contexts.

CHANEL Culture Fund supports radical temporal exploration

Time Zone Protocols critically examines the systems of time imposed by colonialism and capitalism, tracing their global impact from the 1884 International Meridian Conference. Through installations, video works, and an immersive timeline, the exhibition deconstructs linear time, revealing how diverse temporalities operate within Black communities’ histories and memories. Visitors are invited to engage with time in a personal, sensorial way, challenging conventional perceptions and imagining alternative futures.

Interdisciplinary art and the rewriting of time

The Black Quantum Futurism collective—founded by Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother) and Rasheedah Phillips—uses performance, music, writing, and installation to create a multilayered, experimental environment. Featured works include speculative video pieces exploring the entanglement of space and time, and a library installation offering a reflective encounter with cyclical and plural temporalities. The project culminates in the Prime Meridian Unconference (September 4th–6th), connecting global participants to rethink time from both artistic and scientific perspectives.

Black Quantum Futurism collective expands artistic horizons

Through Time Zone Protocols, Black Quantum Futurism demonstrates how interdisciplinary art can challenge dominant structures, merging philosophy, performance, and visual experimentation. Supported by the CHANEL Culture Fund, the exhibition underscores the collective’s commitment to inclusivity, diversity, and imaginative engagement with pressing social and historical questions.

While you await this art project, we invite you to read our conversation with Moor Mother, in which she explores poetry as a catalyst for sensitivity, Black Quantum Futurism’s experiments with time, and the social influence of music. Her reflections reveal the transformative power of creative expression.