FloodZone: Anastasia Samoylova

January 17 – March 7, 2020
USF Contemporary Art Museum, West Gallery

Curated by Sarah Howard; organized by USF Contemporary Art Museum; and supported by an Oolite Arts grant, a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and Dr. Allen Root.

FloodZone is the first solo museum exhibition to present Moscow-born, Miami-based artist Anastasia Samoylova’s ongoing photographic series that reflects and responds to the immediate impacts of sea level rise in South Florida. Her images capture the precarious psychological state of living in a paradise sinking towards catastrophe and reveal the role photography plays in generating collective memories and imagined geographies. Informed by Samoylova’s focus on photography’s ability to obscure reality and craft perception, FloodZone also highlights the friction between natural and constructed landscapes by investigating the relationship among environmentalism, consumerism, and the picturesque. The FloodZone series brings to the surface the seductive and destructive dissonance between the saturation of the tourism and real estate industries’ marketing images of a tropical paradise offering a luxury lifestyle with water views, while vulnerable properties and streets routinely experience high tide flooding, impacting the city’s infrastructure and the well-being of its residents. Focusing on this tension between the fantasy promoted by economic interests and the physical realities of day-to-day life in a sinking environment, Samoylova’s images construct a contemporary visual archive of the physical measures and psychological impacts of the climate crisis and rising seas on South Florida’s shifting coastline.

FloodZone is curated by Sarah Howard; organized by USF Contemporary Art Museum; and supported by an Oolite Arts grant, a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and Dr. Allen Root.

 

PRESS

02/26/2020 - Anastasia Samoylova: FloodZone, By Danny Olda - artpapers.org

02/19/2020 - Art for a Warming World: Sponge Exchange and FloodZone, By Antonia S. Krueger - Creative Pinellas

02/12/2020 - FloodZone – Much Is Amiss In This Paradoxical Paradise, By Selina Roman - Bay Art Files

01/28/2020 - USF CAM solo exhibitions contribute to climate change conversation, By Julie Garisto - 83degrees

01/21/2020 - In Florida, Anastasia Samoylova captures a tropical utopia on the brink of disaster, By Miss Rosen - Document Journal

01/20/2020 - 'FloodZone' Captures South Florida's 'Climate Anxiety' In Unexpected Ways, By Daniel Rivero - WLRN Miami

01/17/2020 - 2 Artists Highlight Oceans In Crisis During USF Museum Exhibits, by D'Ann Lawrenc White - Patch.com

01/15/2020 - Environmental art exhibits open at the University of South Florida, by Maggie Duffy - Tampa Bay Times

01/13/2020 - USF Contemporary Art Museum takes on climate change with two new solo exhibitions, by SK West - Creative Loafing, Tampa

 

DOWNLOADS

Download Exhibition Brochure PDF

Download Press Release PDF

 

About ANASTASIA SAMOYLOVA

Anastasia Samoylova moves between observational photography, studio practice and installation. Her book FloodZone was published by renowned international publisher Steidl in 2019. In 2020, Samoylova’s work will be presented at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum and Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany, as part of the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie; Kunsthaus Wien in Vienna, Austria; and in solo exhibitions at Galerie Caroline O’Breen in Amsterdam and Dot Fiftyone Gallery in Miami. Recent exhibitions include Salisbury University, MD; Flowers Gallery, London; Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, IL; Purdue University, IN; Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, WI; Griffin Museum of Photography, MA; Aperture Foundation, NY; and numerous festivals in Brazil, Belgium, France, Israel, Netherlands, China, and South Korea. Her work is included in the collections of the Perez Art Museum, Miami; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; and Art Slant Collection, Paris. Samoylova was an artist in residence at Oolite Arts, Miami; Mass MoCA; Fountainhead Studios; Latitude Chicago; and Prairie Center for the Arts. Samoylova was awarded a number of grants for her ongoing project FloodZone, including the South Arts Fellowship and Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography. Samoylova has published with The New Yorker, Smithsonian Magazine, FOAM, Wired, Art Press, Wall Street Journal, Oxford American and Bloomberg Businessweek. She has lectured as an invited artist at George Eastman Museum, NY; ParisPhoto; and School of Visual Arts, NY; among others. Samoylova received her MA from Russian State University for the Humanities and MFA from Bradley University. She is represented by Dot Fiftyone Gallery in Miami, Florida and Galerie Caroline O’Breen in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Video Walkthrough

 

PANEL DISCUSSION VIDEO - Rising Above: Art and Climate Resiliency

Installation Views