Subversive Botanicals in Miami’s Art Underground

Miami artists Ọmọlará Williams McCallister and Janae Hernandez work with South Florida’s nonnative plants, such as the snake plant and pothos, to explore themes of migration, immigration, and gentrification. For Oxford American, Alexandra Martinez examines how their art transforms these “invasive” species into community teaching tools. In a slow process, Williams McCallister uses snake plant pulp to make paper, “tending relationships one plot and one neighbor at a time.” Hernandez uses aerial pothos roots to create eco-sculptures and gathers discarded materials in the neighborhood to reuse, guided by her philosophy to “compost, rearrange, let the work keep working.”

In Miami, Williams McCallister and Hernandez turn to plants that persist in this heat and ask what they can teach about staying: how to be useful without taking over, how to make tenderness from discard, how to shift “care” from ornamental upkeep to mutual thriving. The artists don’t ask us to love every plant where it lands. They ask us to see the context we created and take responsibility for the landscapes we keep choosing.