The Armory Show 2024 - Anina Major | TERN Gallery

Anina Major (she/her) is a visual artist from The Bahamas. Her decision to establish a home contrary to the location in which she was born and raised motivates her to investigate the relationship between self and place as a site of negotiation. By utilizing the vernacular of craft to reclaim experiences and relocate displaced objects, her practice exists at the intersection of nostalgia, and identity. Her practice comprises individual ceramic pieces inspired by and honouring her grandmother, Saphora Alvina Timothy Newbold (aka Mar), who was a Straw Market vendor. As a child, Major assisted her grandmother on the stall, catering to the tourists who would purchase her wares. This indigenous knowledge—of straw craft—traditionally handed down from mother to daughter, is slowly being lost to cheap imports and to the destruction the ecosystem that supports the Silver Thatch palm. Major’s decaying pots memorialise this dying art and critique the systems leading to its demise. In exhibitions, her wares are often installed in complex installations—that can also include neon, vintage advertising films, broken shells—whose set-ups are often inspired by vintage post-cards that glorify a nostalgic period in the Bahamian past or refer to our history of migration.Major holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies, including the 2023 Joan Mitchell Fellowship, the Lighton International Artists Exchange Program (LIAEP) Award, and the EKWC, Centre-of-excellence for ceramics international artist-in-residency. Her work has been exhibited in The Bahamas, across the United States, and Europe and featured in permanent collections that include the National Gallery of The Bahamas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.