Following the international open call launched in October last year by Arts at CERN, the Philadelphia based collective Black Quantum Futurism is the winner of the Collide residency award. Consisting of poet, musician, and activist Camae Ayewa, better known as Moor Mother, and artist, author, activist and lawyer Rasheedah Phillips, the duo explores the intersections of futurism, creative media, DIY-aesthetics, and activism in marginalised communities through an alternative temporal lens. Their work focuses on personal, cultural, familial and communal cycles of experience, and their expression methods range from writing, music and film to visual art and creative research projects.

They will complete a two-month residency at CERN, followed by one month in Barcelona at the Hangar Centre for Art Research and Production, in connection with the city’s scientific laboratories. During their residency, which is planned for summer 2021 (if COVID-19-related circumstances allow to travel), and in dialogue with the scientists and collaborators at CERN and in Barcelona, Ayewa and Phillips will extend their research and produce a new artwork based on their proposal entitled “CPT Symmetry and Violations”. In physics, CPT symmetry stands for charge, parity, and time reversal symmetry.

“The project seeks to understand the ways in which quantum physics can influence how people think about, experience and measure time in everyday reality, exploring the possibilities that quantum physics offers beyond the limitations of traditional, linear notions of time,” explain the artists. “Through the project we will connect with scientists based at CERN to learn more about their investigations of time in physics – specifically through studying experiments being done on CPT symmetry, CERN scientists’ investigations into quantum theories of gravity, and other phenomena of quantum physics as it concerns inquiries into time.”

The scope of this proposal will include a research period at CERN and a second, developmental phase in Barcelona in dialogue with various scientific laboratories and hosted at Hangar, where the artists will have the opportunity to expand their research and test its applications through Barcelona’s scientific and cultural network, as well as to engage with a wide range of cultural and scientific communities.

The jury was composed of: Mónica Bello, curator and head of Arts at CERN; Stefanie Hessler, director of Kunsthall Trondheim; Lluis Nacenta, director of Hangar; Rosa Pera, independent curator; and Helga Timko, accelerator physicist at CERN. Collide has been organized in collaboration with Barcelona’s Institute of Culture and Barcelona City Council since 2019 as part of a three-year collaboration (2019-2021).

Collide is an annual competition that invites artists from across the world to submit proposals for a research-led residency based on interaction with CERN’s scientific community. The focus of the residency is to invite artists into the Laboratory to think, discuss, be informed and inspired, and to comprehend the challenges of fundamental research and the big questions that inform physics today. Through this process, the artists develop high-quality innovative engagement with CERN’s research and community. Direct interaction with scientists is fundamental to this process.