Artists in residence open their exhibition at Penn Center with public reception July 14

Penn Center artists-in-residence Anina Major and Tamika Galanis will present their work at an opening reception Thursday, July 14 from 6-8 p.m. in the York W. Bailey Museum, 16 Penn Center Circle West, St. Helena Island, SC. Their exhibition of ceramic sculptures and photography, The Ties that Bind: The Paradox of Cultural Survival amid Climate Events, examines cultural identity and sustainability through environmental relationships.

The artists’ work for the residency, part of the Culture and Community at the Penn Center National Historic Landmark District partnership of the Willson Center and Penn Center on St. Helena Island, explores notions of life in the Sea Islands of South Carolina and The Bahama Islands. Galanis and Major, both from The Bahamas and based in Durham, NC and New York City, respectively, are multimedia artists whose work interrogates popular conceptions of place: Major’s through investigating “the relationship between self and place as a site of negotiation,” and Galanis’s by examining “the complexities of living in a place shrouded in tourism’s ideal during the age of climate concerns.”

The exhibition will be on view through September 23, 2022. The opening event is free and open to the public.