Artist & Curator Conversation: Anina Major and Sadaf Padder
Join artist Anina Major and curator Sadaf Padder for a Zoom conversation about Major’s artistic practice and I Land Therefore I Am, an exhibition of Major’s work at BMAC through October 9.
In her ceramics, installations, and performance art, Major integrates shards of stories and memories as well as years of research, gathered during her own travels between the Bahamas, where she was born and raised, and various places in the northeastern United States, where she has since lived and worked. In her practice, Major employs traditional Bahamian weaving techniques that she learned from her grandmother. Braiding clay, rather than straw, Major mimics the entangled process of maintaining and creating a sense of home and identity post-migration. The resulting ceramics explore themes of permanence and decay, as well as belonging and identity.
Anina Major’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at numerous institutions, including deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum and Mass MoCA. It is also held by many museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. Major holds an M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Sadaf Padder is a Brooklyn-based curator, community organizer, and creative advisor. She is also founder of the Alpha Arts Alliance, an arts agency focused on historically underrepresented artists with a focus on women of color.
Anina Major: I Land Therefore I am is supported in part by the Wolf Kahn & Emily Mason Exhibition Fund.