Born and raised in Nassau, Bahamas, and now a U.S. citizen, Anina Major uses her art practice to investigate the relationship between self and place. Part of a series the artist began during her graduate studies in 2015, this sculpture transposes Bahamian weaving methods often used to create small tourist items into complex clay structures. The craft of weaving palm leaves, now dying out, was passed down through enslaved West African people who were forcibly transported to the Bahamas; the artist's grandmother was an inheritor of this tradition. By creating new ceramic forms inspired by these woven plaits, Major preserves this history while also marking it as a living, changing creative practice. It also serves, as it did for her grandmother, as a vehicle for financial independence.

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