During April, a special art exhibit was hosted by the Office for Campus Culture and Community at the Frieson Black Cultural Center at the University of Tennessee. The exhibit was named Caribbean Currents with a theme of “Take Me Home” and featured cultural artifacts and student contributions along with musical and visual works from artists across the Caribbean diaspora. The exhibit was organized and curated by Caribbean Student Association (CSA) president Brian Boyce.
While Boyce’s interest in the world of art is primarily personal, his academic research explores cultural performance geographies. Boyce’s academic work focuses on cultural practices such as the steelpan, second lines, and Mardi Gras Indians, and how they respond to social and spatial disruptions. Before arriving at UT, he worked in cultural programming and theatre, and those experiences continue to inform how he thinks about space, community, and identity.
“Curating the Caribbean exhibit allowed me to bring those threads together, honoring community while creating a space for cultural education and reflection.”
Brian Boyce
“Curating the Caribbean exhibit allowed me to bring those threads together, honoring community while creating a space for cultural education and reflection,” says Boyce. At the Frieson Black Cultural Center, 3–4 student-led art exhibits are displayed each year and serve as a way to infuse student voice into the campus community.
In addition to curating the exhibit, one of his proudest accomplishments at UT has been relaunching CSA. While CSA was initially founded in 2005, it became inactive for some time until Boyce helped relaunch it in 2023. He has served as the president of the student organization ever since and the group now has a membership of around 40 students, representing a wide range of Caribbean islands and cultural backgrounds.
“CSA has been my anchor on campus,” says Boyce, who is originally from Trinidad and Tobago. “It’s where I found familiarity, joy, and people who understand what it means to be far from home but still want to show up fully as yourself. Through CSA, I didn’t just find community; I helped build one.”
Boyce, who is in his third year of a PhD program in geography, plans to graduate in spring 2027. While at UT, he has served as a graduate research assistant in the Office of Campus Culture and Community and collaborated with the Office of the Dean of Students designing qualitative research activities for student programs. He also created a collaborative mind map activity for Pack to Give Back, where students used the Vol is a Verb framework to identify and mark campus spaces where they explore, practice, and live out a sense of belonging.
Overall, the exhibit was a transformative experience for Boyce as a Volunteer. Seeing the fruit of his hard work to showcase his cultural identity and uniqueness was rewarding and also gave other CSA students a chance to see themselves reflected in the beautiful tapestry that is the campus community.