Artist Bio
Dr. Rolanda JW Spencer
Dr. Rolanda JW Spencer is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and researcher whose work examines African American material culture, memory, spirituality, and communal aesthetics through sculpture, photography, installation, film, and archival practice. Her research-based creative work bridges contemporary art, sociology, African American studies, and public humanities, producing immersive environments that explore ritual, domestic space, cultural inheritance, and diasporic knowledge systems.
Spencer is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Morehouse College and an Andrew Young Center for Global Leadership Innovation Lab Research Fellow. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts Studio, an EdD in Curriculum and Instruction, an MA in Education, and a BA in Journalism. Her interdisciplinary background informs a practice that moves fluidly between scholarship, documentary inquiry, and large-scale installation.
Major Projects
Black Tea Rhapsody
A multimedia exhibition and archival project examining African American tea traditions through immersive installation and material culture.
Divine
A Study of African Diasporic Divination Practices and Their Impact Across Continents — an ongoing documentary and installation project exploring African diasporic spiritual systems.
Iyami Aje: Mothers and Witches
A sculptural installation investigating the archetypes, histories, and spiritual dimensions of Black womanhood.
Spencer's work has been exhibited in galleries, universities, and public institutions, with components of her work entering archival and special collections. Her practice centers the creation of contemporary cultural artifacts that function simultaneously as artwork, historical intervention, and living archive.
Black Tea Rhapsody (2024) a poem by HIS
Exhibition Overview
An Archival Act of Remembrance
Black Tea Rhapsody: An Homage to African American Tea Culture is a research-based multimedia exhibition examining African American tea culture as a living archive of memory, healing, community, and spiritual practice. Drawing from material culture, photography, sculpture, immersive installation, and documentary inquiry, the exhibition constructs environments where visitors inhabit — rather than merely observe — the social and sacred dimensions of Black domestic life across time.
Interdisciplinary in approach and modular in design, the exhibition is built for institutional travel across museums, libraries, and universities. It bridges contemporary art, sociology, African American studies, and public humanities to produce an experience that is intellectually rigorous, emotionally resonant, and culturally essential.
Material Culture
Archival objects, inherited vessels, and domestic artifacts as historical documents
Photography
Documentary and fine art photography examining Black communal life
Sculpture & Installation
Large-scale immersive environments built from ritual and memory
Healing & Herbalism
African American botanical traditions and the medicine of tea
Spiritual Practice
Ancestral veneration, divination, and the sacred dimensions of gathering
Public Humanities
Community engagement, scholarship, and intergenerational dialogue
Artist Statement
On Tea, Memory, and the Architecture of Gathering
Tea is not incidental to Black life — it is infrastructural. It holds the shape of the room, the hour, the conversation that could not be had anywhere else.
This work begins with objects: the chipped cup, the inherited saucer, the kettle passed down without ceremony. These are not decorations — they are documents. African American material culture carries within it a grammar of survival, sociality, and sacred practice that formal archives have long overlooked.
Through installation, I construct environments where visitors do not merely observe but inhabit. The domestic space becomes a stage for intergenerational storytelling — where the act of gathering over tea is understood as ceremony, as medicine, and as a form of communal knowledge-making that moves across time.
Public Programming
Education, Community & Dialogue
Black Tea Rhapsody is designed as a living public humanities platform — not merely an exhibition to be viewed, but a sustained environment for community engagement, scholarly exchange, and cultural celebration. The following programming is available to institutional partners.
Artist Lectures
Curator-led public lectures connecting the exhibition to African American material culture, domestic history, and contemporary art practice.
Curator Walkthroughs
Guided exhibition tours with Dr. Spencer offering in-depth interpretation of each immersive environment.
Tea Ceremonies
Participatory ceremonies exploring African American herbal traditions, ritual hospitality, and the social history of tea.
Workshops
Hands-on sessions in archival handling, botanical knowledge, and material culture documentation.
Film Screenings
Documentary screenings exploring African American tea culture, herbalism, and diasporic spiritual practice.
Student Engagement
Curriculum-integrated programming for undergraduate and graduate students across disciplines.
Archive Handling Sessions
Supervised engagement with archival materials, codex editions, and exhibition documentation.
Community Dialogues
Open community conversations on Black cultural memory, healing traditions, and the politics of domestic space.
