The Cameron Art Museum (CAM) in Wilmington will open "Rooted in Memory: The Gullah Geechee Vision of Jonathan Green" on June 19, 2025, running through January 24, 2027. The exhibition features vibrant paintings by Jonathan Green, a Gullah Geechee artist trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, alongside traditional sweetgrass baskets, quilts, and Adinkra-printed cloth on loan from the Charleston Museum, the Gibbes Museum, and the South Carolina State Museum. A special opening night on June 18 will also include the exhibits "Fresh Air: Inflatable Sculptures" and "Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds," followed by a free community day on June 20.
The exhibition matters because it centers the heritage and enduring impact of Gullah Geechee people, descendants of West and Central Africans who were enslaved and brought to the South via the transatlantic slave trade. By combining contemporary art with traditional crafts, the show honors a culture that shaped the region's agricultural and craft economies, and highlights the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, a National Heritage Area stretching from Florida to Pender County. This is a significant institutional recognition of a historically underrepresented culture in a major museum setting.