Bayo Akomolafe | The Untimely

Why It Matters

Reframing time challenges the cultural and political logics that shape policy, climate action and social priorities; embracing "untimely" temporalities could shift who is centered in decision-making and how long-term risks and responsibilities are conceived. This has implications for climate strategy, cultural politics and organizational planning that rely on entrenched timelines.

Summary

In his talk "The Untimely," Bayo Akomolafe argues that time is not neutral or natural but a constructed story that enforces particular social agendas and human centrality. He critiques mainstream responses to temporal crisis—like appeals to deep time or long-term clocks—as preserving the same modernist assumptions of mastery. Drawing on Black studies, indigenous perspectives and personal narrative, Akomolafe proposes the idea of the "untimely": a way of inhabiting and creating alternative temporalities that disrupt dominant rhythms and open new possibilities. His remarks invite a rethinking of how societies measure, value and live time rather than simply extending existing timelines.

Original Description

In his Talk, poet-philosopher Bayo Akomolafe presented a riveting critique of linear time, and gave a persuasive invitation to step sideways, to slow down, to notice the cracks in our temporal systems.

Through Yoruba cosmology, slave ship histories, and decolonization strategies, he invited us to look at the space between the tick and the tock, to sit in the uncomfortable and incomplete. Only here, in what Akomolafe calls “parapolitics of the untimely,” can we ask, “What does untimeliness make possible?”

This talk was presented May 5, 02026 at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco.

Episode notes: https://longnow.org/talks/02026-akomolafe/

The event livestream is here:

https://youtube.com/live/dM9IaFgKdqU

This talk is part of Long Now Talks.

Launched by Stewart Brand in 02003, Long Now Talks has invited more than 400 leading thinkers to share their civilization-scale ideas with a live audience and millions around the globe tuning in to our podcast and videos. Long Now Talks are brought to you by The Long Now Foundation, which has spent the last 25 years igniting cultural imagination around long-term thinking.

By inspiring thought and conversation about how we've been shaped by the last 10,000 years and what might be in store for us over the next 10,000 years, Long Now Talks seek to expand our collective sense of the present moment. Long Now Talks cover futurism and speculative fiction; time, nature, and contemplative practices; the intersection of the humanities and sciences; the evolution of counterculture to cyberculture; cultural imagination, land art and public monuments; and of course, long-term thinking and being a good ancestor.

In our age of compounding crises, The Long Now Foundation is a counterweight. We are a force that imagines new possibilities, thinks critically, and takes action over the long term. We believe that when we all come together, bound by commitment and curiosity, audacious things become possible. Will you join us? https://longnow.org/join