The Other Side of Time

“The first thing to do would be to consider time as officially ended. We work on the other side of time. With the official end of time comes the end of a history that includes African slavery and all the miseries of the dead.“ – Sun Ra

About the project

The Other Side of Time is a photo and interview series conceptualized and designed by Tanisha Hill-Jarrett, PhD and photographed by Austin James. Centering the lived experiences and imagined futures of older Black women from the San Francisco Bay Area, this series uses Afrofuturism to explore and reimagine the impact of time inequity on Black women throughout the lifecourse.

Black women exist and thrive in spite of time inequities. In this series, 13 aging Black women consider what it means to manipulate time in ways that defy Western frameworks of time, labor, and capital. They share stories of resistance and counternarratives that highlight ways they have reclaimed time to age well. Through remembering (and intuitively reconnecting with their true history), reclaiming (time and the Black woman image), and reimagining (Black women narratives + a socially transformed future rooted in equity), this series places Black women as the central storywriters of their existence and the future. The women consider what it truly means for Black women to defy the social construction of time and exist on “the other side”—in an alternate space that promotes Black women’s self-determination, health, and joy.

Click below to hear the audio of each woman's journey.