At ICA Miami, the South African artist Igshaan Adams unveiled a site-specific installation that turns the museum’s three-story stairwell into a monumental landscape of woven memory. On view through November 1, 2026, is “Lulu, Zanele, Zandile, Savannah”—a collection of four cascading tapestries, each named for women from Adams’s community in Bonteheuwel—suspended alongside his signature “dust clouds” sculptural wire forms that hover in the air.
An Installation Rooted in Reverence by Igshaan Adams
Igshaan Adams,
“Zanele,” 2025 (detail),
cotton twine, polypropylene, polyester braided and washing line rope,
cotton and silk fabric, plastic, wooden, glass, stone, metal and cowry shell
beads, mohair wool, silver and gold chain and tiger tail wire,
253 x 190 cm.,
99 1/2 x 74 3/4 in.
© Igshaan Adams. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery, Casey
Kaplan and blank projects. Photo: Mario Todeschini.
The new commission by Igshaan Adams stretches across the full height of the stair shaft, cascading down like a woven altar. Each tapestry is a densely textured map that highlights beading traditions, craft lineages, and vernacular materials, evoking landscape and lived experience.
“I really fell in love with tactility,”
—Igshaan Adams
In naming the tapestries after Lulu, Zanele, Zandile, and Savannah, Adams foregrounds the matriarchal figures whose presence shaped his upbringing. Their names anchor the installation in familial intimacy, elevating the often invisible forms of domestic labor, care, and cultural transmission carried by women across generations.
Suspended around the textiles, Adams’s “dust clouds”—airy clusters of twisted wire, found materials, and repurposed elements—that add dimensional rhythm. Hovering between abstraction and atmosphere, they conjure the energy of communal gatherings, the pulse of dance floors, and the movement of bodies engaged in ritual or celebration.
Materiality as Memory
Igshaan Adams,
“Savannah,” 2025 (detail),
cotton twine, polypropylene and polyester rope, plastic, glass, stone, wood
and shell beads, cotton fabric, plastic and cotton lace, silk ribbon, cotton
wool, silver chain, silver ball chain and tiger tail wire,
233 x 194 cm.,
91 3/4 x 76 1/2 in.,
© Igshaan Adams. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery, Casey
Kaplan and blank projects. Photo: Mario Todeschini.
Adams is known for transforming humble, everyday materials into complex aesthetic languages that blur distinctions between craft and contemporary art. Rope, plastic, chain, and fabric—often sourced from domestic or industrial contexts—become metaphors for memory, place, and spiritual grounding.
Here, the stairwell becomes a vessel for these material narratives. Light filters through beadwork; shadows dance across walls; woven gradients mimic aerial views or weather patterns. The viewer moves not just alongside the work but within it, experiencing shifting vantage points as the installation expands, contracts, and recontextualizes itself with each step.
“I’m drawn to the idea of finding materials and details that don’t have any intrinsic value in and of itself, but that I can bring value to,”
—Igshaan Adams
The result is a curated movement through vertical space that mirrors the emotional ascent embedded in the tapestries themselves.
From Bonteheuwel to Miami
Igshaan Adams
“Lulu,” 2025 (detail),
cotton twine, polyester braided rope, cotton and silk fabric, plastic, metal,
glass and stone beads, mohair wool, rose gold chain and tiger tail wire,
229 x 191 cm.,
90 1/4 x 75 1/4 in.,
© Igshaan Adams. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery, Casey
Kaplan and blank projects. Photo: Mario Todeschini.
Born in 1982 in Cape Town, Adams grew up in Bonteheuwel—a township shaped by apartheid-era segregation. His practice frequently engages the layered identities that emerged from that history of Muslim faith, Creole heritage, and queer identity.
At ICA Miami, these intersections resonate in a city defined by migration and multiplicity. Miami’s diasporic fabric becomes a fitting counterpoint to Adams’s explorations of displacement, connection, and shared lineage. The verticality of the installation suggests movement across borders—upward, inward, and across time. The installation’s shift from one floor to the next mirrors the intergenerational passage of tradition and the navigation of complex identity landscapes.
Reimagining Space, Craft, and Presence
Igshaan Adams,
“Zandile,” 2025 (detail),
cotton twine, washing line, polypropylene and polyester braided rope,
velvet fabric, polyester ribbon, glass, stone, plastic, wooden and metal
beads, mohair wool and tiger tail wire,
254 x 191 cm.,
100 x 75 1/4 in.,
© Igshaan Adams. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery, Casey
Kaplan and blank projects. Photo: Mario Todeschini.
By transforming the space into a place of contemplation, Igshaan Adams challenges how viewers engage with art in institutional settings. The stairwell becomes less a conduit than a chamber—one where the stories of women, the pulses of communities, and the gestures of craft-based traditions are exalted.
“I certainly feel like I’ve had to do that myself… I had to find my way,”
—Igshaan Adams
As the beads shimmer and the dust clouds hover, the stairwell at ICA Miami becomes a living archive, asking viewers to ascend with intention, recognize beauty in the everyday, and to step through space as though stepping through memory.
