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Dreaming in Bamboo: Nature-Inspired Sculptures Intrigue, Delight Guests at MOSI

TAMPA, FL (December 22, 2025) – Guests at MOSI, Tampa’s Museum of Science & Industry, will find themselves “Dreaming in Bamboo” with the debut today of a nature-inspired sculpture exhibit made up of woven wonders.

Published December 22, 2025, 12:53 PM UTC

Tampa Native Artist Alexander Nixon Brings His Enchanting Bamboo Figures to Tampa’s Museum of Science & Industry

To create the Dreaming in Bamboo exhibit, artist Alexander Nixon used Florida’s plentiful, fast-growing, and hollow bamboo as his organic medium, bending, twisting, splitting, and weaving the tall plants into fascinating figures that look like the Florida landscape come to life.

“I learned everything by trial and error, through perseverance on rainy days, bitten by mosquitos, fingers full of splinters and cuts,” said Nixon, a University of Tampa art history professor and Tampa native. “Many years later, I have refined and mastered my process and techniques, ‘optimizing’ bamboo for a rich visual experience that I hope inspires wonder and a love for the natural world.”

His first nature-based art inspiration, a giant chair made of cherry laurel, was gobbled up by Florida insects within weeks.

The experience made for valuable lessons in the power of Mother Nature and the value of trial-and-error and discovery—concepts MOSI helps guests explore every day.

Nixon begins each sculpture by forming a bamboo skeleton, then tendons and muscles, and finally a thin outer skin.

All of his large but incredibly light works—a female figure with arms outstretched, an enormous but intricate face, an elephant raising its trunk, a towering unicorn—are 100% bamboo.

This new exhibit, Alexander Nixon: Dreaming in Bamboo, underscores MOSI’s steadfast commitment to STEAM in our community, using science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics to spark a love of learning.

“STEAM cultivates critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity,” said MOSI CEO John Graydon Smith. “Exhibits like Dreaming in Bamboo at MOSI remind us all just how far our imaginations can take us, and that the possibilities are limitless.”

Dreaming in Bamboo opens today, December 22, and runs through March 29 in MOSI’s Arc Gallery next to the newly opened Saunders Planetarium and Digital Dome Theatre, the second-largest planetarium in the U.S.

The exhibit is included in the cost of admission to MOSI, located at 4801 E. Fowler Ave. in North Tampa across from the University of South Florida.

For more information, including directions, hours, and parking, visit mosi.org.

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About the Artist

Alexander Nixon holds a BA from Stanford University, where he received the Nathan Oliveira Award for painting. He spent 18 years in New York creating drawings and large map mosaics before returning to Tampa in 2018. Now a professor of art history at the University of Tampa, he draws inspiration from ancient and modern sculpture. Bamboo has become his signature medium and the foundation of his artistic practice.

About MOSI, Tampa’s Museum of Science & Industry

MOSI is Tampa Bay’s center of science and innovation, located in North Tampa at 4801 E. Fowler Ave.

Welcome to the Museum of Science and Industry, where the wonders of science come to life. We are a hands-on science center dedicated to interactive learning and playful exploration. With engaging permanent and rotating exhibits and out of this world programming, MOSI makes science and technology accessible to all. Come join us on a journey of discovery and unlock the mysteries of the world around us.

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