Andrea Walls’ Receipts: We Have Them

This exhibition explores themes of Black joy and resistance through curated compilations of lived textures, creative artifacts, and personal testimonies. Framing the generational wisdom of Black Philadelphia, the show reveals culture not as ornament, but as architecture.

Opening Reception: Friday, July 18, 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Viewing Hours: One hour before and after public events.

Curator’s Statement
Culture is not a byproduct. It is a practice. A pulse. A record.

In Receipts: We Have Them, we bring forward the visual, spiritual, and everyday evidence of how Black communities create, shape, and preserve culture—not as ornament, but as architecture. Each work in this exhibition testifies to the fact that culture doesn’t just sit on the walls of institutions; it lives in kitchens, stoops, salons, sanctuaries, and side hustles. It’s not just something we inherit—it’s something we labor to maintain, remix, and reimagine, every single day.

In Philadelphia, a city where sound, sweat, resistance, and beauty meet on every corner, Black artists have long provided the scaffolding for cultural life. This show gathers those artists, their artifacts, their gestures, their textures, and their testimonies. These are our receipts.

We understand that culture serves us—and that we, in turn, serve it. That it feeds us, but must also be fed. Through image, language, and material, these artists reflect on the double-edged nature of cultural labor: to hold and be held by a tradition, to offer and be offered. Their work is an active archive of how Black Philadelphia insists on being seen and remembered—not only in times of crisis, but in times of deep joy, deep history, and deep care.

This is a visual audit. A communal ledger. A shout and a whisper. A welcoming.

And yes, we’ve got the receipts.

— Curated with love and intention,
Andrea Walls — Artist, Witness, and Cultural Custodian