A new exhibition by Bahamian-born artist Anina Major is on view at the Pérez Art Museum Miami through August 2027. The exhibition, known as The Sacred Mangrove, features Major’s unique style of hand weaving clay to resemble palm-leaf plaiting, a craft she was first introduced to by the grandmother who helped raise her. By reimagining weaving through clay, Major gives longevity to a cultural tradition rooted in impermanence.
“[My grandmother] passed away when I was entering my teen years,” said Major. “I like to think of her as a second mom. That’s quite common amongst Caribbean households; the granny is there to help raise the children. When I think about pleasant times, there are a lot associated with her.”
The exhibition at PAMM is presented as an environment where sculpture and architecture come together to create an experience that can be not only seen but navigated. This walkable ecosystem brings together materials drawn from the Caribbean landscape, with clay sculptures featured alongside bottle trees and crushed shells. Like in a forest of mangroves, visitors can move among groupings of tower forms and protective objects, experiencing the exhibition’s title as a model of reciprocal care.
Anina Major is a Bahamian-born artist.
(Melissa Alcena)
For Major, home is a community, a series of shared values and an interdependence. Beyond just a title, “mangrove” is what happens when people work with one another.
“We bring our values together, and they create the whole,” said Major. “Without one, there’s an absence; we rely on that from each other. I think that as a society we did go down that path where it’s very isolated: me, me, me. And I feel like there’s a need for us to shift a little bit more to us, us, us.”
Installation view: Anina Major: The Sacred Mangrove, Pérez Art Museum Miami, 2026.
(Lazaro Llanes)
Major’s grandmother, Saphora Newbold, was the family matriarch, laying the groundwork for Major to pursue her career as an artist and for her family and community to persevere.
“She would tell me, ‘You’re going to do these things,’” said Major. But as a child, the meaning wasn’t always clear. “I would be like, ‘Whatever that means,’” Major said with a laugh. “I think the most important thing that [my grandmother] passed on to me is the ability to believe and the tenacity to pursue it.”
Installation view: Anina Major: The Sacred Mangrove, Pérez Art Museum Miami, 2026.
(Lazaro Llanes)
As she grew older, her grandmother’s influence on her life remained. Even now, Major considers her art to be very “personal.”
“I think that I’m an expert on me,” she said. “I don’t think my experiences are necessarily unique, but I do think that being able to see how those experiences manifested within me could be useful or valuable to others.”
Major’s work is a testament to the idea of belonging. Although she shifts the materials used in hand-weaving from organic fiber to fired earth, blurring the line between craft and art, she does it as an act of reference toward the history of Bahamian labor and her own ancestry.
“There’s an element of responsiveness that comes into play,” said Major. “I think part of it is the material. It requires you to have some kind of patience, and you’re exercising that every day.”
Tradition plays a big role in Major’s art — an understanding of lineage and ancestry with a tenderness toward undervalued history, especially in light of the tourism economy that surrounds the Bahamas.
Installation view: Anina Major: The Sacred Mangrove, Pérez Art Museum Miami, 2026.
(Lazaro Llanes)
PAMM curator Jennifer Inacio sees the exhibition as a reminder of cultural inheritance as an active event rather than a passive one. The Sacred Mangrove is something of a living landscape where memory can become tangible. The installation itself appears in PAMM’s waterfront lobby gallery, placing the art in direct conversation with the world outside of the museum; Biscayne Bay, cruise ships and the reality of nature informed by innovation offer a backdrop to the story Major is telling through her art.
“[Major] is protecting [her] memory by revisiting this technique that her grandmother would make,” said Inacio. “I think this idea of both protection and resilience is found in a lot in her work, and I think that in our moment, as we navigate current conversations, it’s important to think about what we need for protection to find forces to build resilience through tough times.”
“How do we protect those good memories to then later on nurture us and then use that as a source of energy?” continued Inacio. “It’s so human, the work. We often have to be reminded of how we connect to each other.”
Installation view: Anina Major: The Sacred Mangrove, Pérez Art Museum Miami, 2026.
(Lazaro Llanes)
Inacio emphasized Miami’s diversity and the many different cultures that coalesce in the city. She believes anyone and everyone can connect to the work through their understanding of their cultural histories and the memories that accompany them.
“It’s a mirror, I think,” said Inacio, “to everyone here in Miami.”
Find out more about the exhibition by visiting pamm.org. To preview some of the works or learn more about the artist, visit her personal website at aninamajor.com.
IF YOU GO
What: Anina Major: The Sacred Mangrove
Where: Pérez Art Museum Miami, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, FL 33132
When: Through August 2027. Museum open Monday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., closed Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday through Sunday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Tickets: $18 for adults; $14 for students, seniors 62+ and youth 7-18; free for children 0-6, healthcare professionals and first responders, active U.S. Military and veterans, Florida educators, and visitors identifying as disabled and their accompanying caregiver
Info: pamm.org
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Anina Major. Water Tower, 2024. Glazed stoneware, melted sea glass and sand. 45 x 11 x 11 inches. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by PAMM’s Collectors Council. © Anina Major.
Anina Major. Water Tower, 2024. Glazed stoneware, melted sea glass and sand. 45 x 11 x 11 inches. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by PAMM’s Collectors Council. © Anina Major.