Archives: Series
First Mondays: Readings of New Works In Progress (Winter/Spring 2025)
Organized and curated by Sarah Schulman, First Mondays makes good use of one of the great advantages of living in New York City: engaging with writers in the middle of the creative process and hearing new ideas as they are being created instead of waiting years for books to appear on bookstore shelves. First Mondays allows us to share in accomplished writers’ processes as they are happening and gives us an intimate insight into their new works in-progress, long before publication or performances. Join us every first Monday at Performance Space New York for a special opportunity to hear the future and revel in a vibrant community of book-lovers.
For more than 5 years, First Mondays has brought readers and writers together to celebrate the written word from diverse perspectives and genres, all for free.
Black Quantum Futurism: The Memory Vortex Inn (Ongoing)
Community Space
Open Room
September 20, 2024 – June 30, 2025
Tuesday – Friday, Sunday | 12 – 6pm
Free (Check out the line-up below)
The Memory Vortex Inn is a year-long installation in Open Room, our gallery and community space. The Inn includes a program of film screenings, readings, sound healing sessions, performances, and workshops organized by Rasheedah Phillips and Camae Ayewa of Black Quantum Futurism, Performance Space New York, and all of our communities. Black Quantum Futurism transforms Open Room into a sanctuary prioritizing community-based work that uplifts temporal autonomy, play, experimentation, spatial reclamation, and collective visioning.
This season, The Memory Vortex Inn will house the following programs:
Tuesday February 11, 7PM
HxH (Chris Williams & Lester St. Louis)
Tuesday March 5, 7PM
HPRIZM
Tuesday April 15, 7PM
Moor Mother
Tuesday May 20, 7PM
TBD
Tuesday June 24, 7PM
Black Quantum Futurism
The Memory Vortex Inn is a sanctuary nestled within the liminal corridors of time, blending the realms of Black temporalities, the mysteries of quantum physics, and the interwoven heritage of African and Afro-Diasporic time and memory practices. The duo’s work intersects futurism, creative media, DIY-aesthetics, and activism in marginalized communities. Building on themes present throughout their work, but site-specific to Performance Space, The Inn calls attention to our ability to manipulate space-time and to imagine and build new realities. Crafted with a retrocausal blueprint, this Inn unfurls backwards into the cosmos, tracing our origins and our potential paths, standing as a spacetime for the disentangling and rethreading of our time-bound narratives, fostering a communal space for the re-envisioning of what has been and what could be, with a deliberate focus on the unique temporal and spatial experiences that encourage an experimental dance with the dimensions of time and space.The installation is designed with elements such as the Oral Futures Jookbox, where visitors can record their own memories and stories and listen back to others’. The space will also feature retractable microphones to encourage spontaneous performances, a library, a synth laboratory, and interactive clock sculptures that embody the principles of temporal abundance, all within a setting that evokes the comfort and community spirit of a lounge, the restful embrace of an inn, and the creative vibrancy of a convening.
The Memory Vortex Inn is in service of a future where we—the collective—are stewarding, not just land, but reality itself. Black Quantum Futurism’s interest in creating communal space-time aligns more generally with the ethos of Open Room, which is accessible to the public to use throughout the year. We welcome you to hang out, work, use our free WIFI, and relax, even when no programs are scheduled.
Winter/Spring Programming 2025
Our Winter/Spring 2025 expands on our unwavering and resounding YES to ARTISTS through new works, US debuts, deep dives into the creative process, celebrations of our community of art workers, and recurring Performance Space New York programs such as First Mondays, Open Movement, as well as various Community Partnerships.
As Performance Space continues to be an essential and singular space where artists, collaborators, and supporters alike come together in deep intimate exchange and expansive world-building – we ground ourselves in our artists’ visions, letting them lead the way with unique perspectives and a dedication to imaginative new possibilities of being.