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j.t.roane

@j.t.roane

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Three practices. One shared vision of a Black future.

Meet J.T. Roane and Jona Alexander, collaborators on @CurryHackett’s exhibition, “It Can Happen...Still Time to Try”. Together, they brought film, sound and collage into a conversation about Black life, land and collective possibility.

J.T. Roane (@j.t.roane) is from Tappahannock, Virginia and lives in Philadelphia. He is an Africana Studies scholar and Geographer at Rutgers University, where he co-leads the Black Ecologies Lab. His award-winning book Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place (2023) maps relationships between Black rural and urban placemaking tactics in the American South and Philadelphia.

Jona Alexander (@nolabeljona) is a Philadelphia-based Black geographer, documentarian, and educator working across film, poetry, and soundscape. As lead documentarian for the Black Ecologies Lab at Rutgers University, and the Black Geographers on Film project, Jona’s films incorporate environmental science, oral history, and urban studies to reveal the ecological consequences of slavery’s afterlives, and how they shape Afro-diasporic communities.

Join us tomorrow Tuesday, October 20, for the exhibition’s closing reception, featuring a roundtable with Curry, J.T. and Jona, moderated by @linyee_is_outside, alongside a special performance by @redprojectnyc and sounds by @muenfua.

It Can Happen... Still Time to Try is on view at Ace Hotel Brooklyn through October 31 as part of our 2026 Artist-in-Residence program in collaboration with @fieldmeridians.

Images by @malakhaipearson

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Students, filmmakers, and scholars from Rutgers University’s Black Ecologies Lab visited Mound Bayou Museum for a day of experiential learning rooted in the story of this community.

Introduced by Dr. Teona Williams and guided by public historian Rhondalyn Peairs of HISTORICH, the group explored the connections between Black history, land, community, and self-determination.

We were glad to welcome them into the museum and share the stories Mound Bayou holds!

#SavingPlaces #MuseumEducation

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NEW WEBINAR SERIES!

Thirsty Thursdays is the Black Ecologies Lab’s signature speaker series—a happy-hour gathering where we pour a drink and dive into the cutting-edge, creative methodologies transforming the subfield of Black Ecologies and Black Geographies.

Blending hands-on workshops with intimate community conversations, this series bridges Black livingness and improvisation as critical environmental practice. From DJ-ing as archiving and graphic-novel storytelling to multi-species dialogues and artistic interventions in post-disaster landscapes, we invite you to sip, create, listen, and chop it up with us at the intersections of Black life and the environment.

Join our hosts Teona Williams (Rutgers University), Danielle Purifoy (UNC Chapel Hill), J.T. Roane (Rutgers University), and Justin Hosbey (UC Santa Barbara) as they gather with comrades to dream of new worlds.

In the first webinar in the series, on 10/29, join us for a book talk with Dr. Ashantè Reese on her new work, Gather. Grounded in foodways, memory, and everyday survival strategies, Dr. Reese will explore gathering as a core methodology for documenting Black life, followed by an open discussion with attendees.

Register by scanning the QR code in the flyer, clicking on the link in our bio, or by heading to go.rutgers.edu/ThirstyThursdays

#BlackEcologies
#RutgersExcellence

@rutgersu
@j.t.roane
@just.like.dat
@dmpurifoy

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Happening Friday, November 6th, at Iziko Museum, Cape Town. What might become possible when we think about education through Black ecologies? Join us for a public gathering with researchers, educators, artists, and community organizers. Link to register in bio. #education #Blackecologies

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October Goings On at Ace Brooklyn.
A month of design and dialogue, making things and making moves.

@goodeeworld takes over the Ace Suite with “Home Away From Home”, a week shaped by the objects, rituals, and stories. Then, founders Byron and Dexter Peart (@byronanddexterpeart) join us for “The Conversation Pit,” hosted by Sydney Gore (@cozy.spice) with chef + artist Phoebe Tran (@bebep.babykitchen). @LondonReviewofBooks brings their acclaimed podcast “Close Readings” Live to Brooklyn, with Professor James Wood in conversation with Clair Wills.

We spend the final month of @curryhackett’s “It Can Happen...Still Time to Try” exploring the city through a Collage Walk, then gather for a closing reception talk with Curry, @j.t.roane and @nolabeljona moderated by @linyee_is_outside and a movement performance by @redprojectnyc. @sarisaristudio and @KEMBOT.NYC return with its Filipino Line Dancing Social to celebrate Filipino American History Month. And October goes out in costume with Halloween Editions of @quianaparks Friday Nights and A VIBE CALLED BLESSED.

All this, plus familiar favorites and new sounds throughout the month. Swipe for the full lineup. Details and RSVPs at the link in bio.

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Intro to Africana Studies students on a historical field trip!

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that in so many ways Rutgers and its community has had an outsized role in local history!

We always feel privileged to observe the work of Dr. @j.t.roane whose work on Black Ecologies we consider of vital interest and significance.

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What can Black relationships with land teach us about building otherwise?

During his residency at Ace Hotel Brooklyn, multimedia artist and educator @CurryHackett collaborated with @j.t.roane and @nolabeljona of the Rutgers University Black Ecologies Lab to explore Black kinship with land, ecological memory and new possibilities for inhabiting the built environment.

Together, they transformed an Ace suite into a site for research, pause and exchange, bringing books from their personal libraries into the space, conducting interviews with Black land stewards and Black studies scholars, gathering footage, making drawings and assembling collages.

The resulting exhibition, It Can Happen… Still Time to Try, brings these materials together as a multimedia curriculum imagining how we might mend our relationship with land.

Inspired in part by June Jordan’s writing on land reform, the exhibition considers Black dwelling not only as a response to the environments we inherit, but as a practice of imagining and constructing new ones.

“It Can Happen… Still Time to Try”
Curry J. Hackett with J.t. Roane and Jona Alexander presented by Ace Hotel Brooklyn and @FieldMeridians

On view at Ace Hotel Brooklyn through October 31, 2026.

Photos by @malakhaipearson

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Documentation and images for my friend and collaborator @curryhackett, Ace Hotel Artist in Residence in partnership with @fieldmeridians.

It Can Happen…Still Time to Try is a consideration for us to consider more radical relationships with land. This work is a collaborative effort from Curry, @j.t.roane and @nolabeljona - on display at the Ace Hotel in Downtown Brooklyn until 10.31.

The exhibition ultimately seeks to be in dialogue with June Jordan’s career as a spatial thinker as well as the everyday cultural practices that shape Black landscapes.

@acehotelbrooklyn
cc: @dariusgarvin
In partnership with @fieldmeridians

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We had the honor of hosting Black Ecologies Lab this week at TruCulture Community Farm & Market.

From joining us for our Sunday Market at City Park to spending time in our newly built retreat space, The Hummingbird, Black Ecologies Lab got to experience TruCulture in all its fullness. In return, they captured our vision, our people, and our land in this beautiful video — a little tease of the docuseries to come.

Black Ecologies Lab brings together visionaries and innovative Black thinkers to explore the issues impacting our communities, while also examining the erosion of ancestral healing, ecological knowledge, and agrarian traditions.

For us, Black joy is a tool of liberation. And that is exactly what we shared during our time together: laughter, food, conversation, ideas, and a deep appreciation for the land.

We are grateful to Black Ecologies Lab for seeing the vision and helping us tell this story.

This is just the beginning.
DIRECTED BY JONAH ALEXANDER @nolabeljona
PRODUCERS TEONA WILLIAMS 🖤 &. J.T. ROANE. @j.t.roane Special Thanks
TRUCULTURE COMMUNITY MARKET @truculturecommunity
THE BLACK ECOLOGIES LAB
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY
JUSTIN HOSBEY @just.like.dat
HUEWAYNE WATSON JAYSON M. PORTER. @roguechieftan DANIELLE PURIFOY. @dmpurifoy
Voice and Video Of
KAREN HUTCHISON @karenhutc
BAILEY HUTCHISON @mecca_x
JAMES HUTCHISON @jimmy504
@truculturecommunity

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day 3 of the mississippi black ecologies field school at @truculturecommunity farm in hattiesburg. from the forthcoming black ecologies lab series “stories from the stewards” with our truculture fam @mecca_x and @jimmy504

special thanks to
teona williams, @j.t.roane, @just.like.dat, @roguechieftan @dmpurifoy, huewayne watson

directed, shot, edited by @nolabeljona and @hydroproductionscompany

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One of the most enlightening projects I’ve had the pleasure of helping bring to life at Ace Brooklyn: “It Can Happen…Still Time to Try”, a new exhibition by Curry J. Hackett.

Developed through Curry’s July residency at Ace, the exhibition combines illustration, research, text and sound to examine memory, place and the ways Black communities shape and are shaped by the built environment.

Grateful to Curry, J.t. and Jona for trusting us with the work, to Field Meridians for their collaboration, and to everyone across the Ace team for their continued support and efforts across the 2026-2027 Artist-in-Residence program.

“It Can Happen…Still Time to Try” is now on view at Ace Hotel Brooklyn through October 31.

@curryhackett @j.t.roane @nolabeljona

Presented by @acehotelbrooklyn in collaboration with @fieldmeridians

Photos by @malakhaipearson

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What might a Black built environment look like when shaped by abundance, memory and collective care?

Last week, we celebrated the opening of @CurryHackett’s “It Can Happen…Still Time to Try”, created with @j.t.roane and @nolabeljona. Across film, sound and collage, the exhibition traces Black relationships to land and imagines new possibilities beyond the ongoing harms of property.

Inspired by poet and activist June Jordan’s work as a spatial thinker and grounded in a month of research, conversation and documentation across Brooklyn, the exhibition considers the everyday practices through which Black landscapes are made and sustained.

Presented with @FieldMeridians as part of our 2026 Artist-in-Residence program. On view through October 31 in The Gallery at Ace Hotel Brooklyn.

Photos by @malakhaipearson

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