Artworks, essays and poetry explore the racial implications of
capitalist temporalities
In 2019, the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of
Pennsylvania presented the experimental exhibition Colored People
Time. Divided into three chapters--Mundane Futures, Quotidian Pasts,
Banal Presents--it used the Black vernacular phrase "Colored People's
Time" (CPT) to explore the ways that dominant notions of time have been
used to control and condemn Black people. CPT names a political
performance by Black people to evade and ridicule the enforcement of
punctuality and productivity.
Alongside reproductions of historical objects from the Black Panther
Party, Sutton E. Griggs, the National Institutes of Health/Getty Images,
and the African Collection at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, Colored People Time includes reprints of
seminal essays, newly commissioned writing and poetry from Huey
Copeland, Eve Ewing, Michael Hanchard, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Amber
Rose Johnson, Carolyn Lazard, Jessica Lynne, Tausif Noor, Meg Onli,
Gregory Pardlo, M. NourbeSe Philip, Monique Scott, Martine Syms and
Michelle M. Wright.Artists include: Aria Dean, Kevin Jerome Everson,
Matthew Angelo Harrison, Carolyn Lazard, Dave McKenzie, Cameron Rowland,
Sable Elyse Smith and Martine Syms.
