Anastasia Samoylova on Floridas: Nonfiction

Anastasia Samoylova is an American artist who moves between observational photography, studio practice, and installation. Her work explores notions of environmentalism, consumerism, and the picturesque. In 2020-2021 her ongoing project FloodZone was presented in solo exhibitions at various museums, including HistoryMiami Museum and the Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa; it is currently on view at the Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York. In Floridas (Steidl), the work of Samoylova (born 1984) and Walker Evans (1903-75) are combined to convey Florida’s dizzying combination of fantasy and reality. Samoylova photographed Florida on intensive road trips; Evans photographed it over four decades. He witnessed modern Florida emerging in the 1930s with its blend of cultures, waves of tourism, stark beauty, and blatant vulgarity. He photographed there until the 1970s, making Polaroids that still feel contemporary. Samoylova inherits what Evans saw coming. She picks her way through the seductions and disappointments of a place that symbolizes the contradictions of the United States today. In Floridas, their photography is presented in parallel, weaving past and present, switching between black-and-white and color imagery, all complemented by an essay from editor David Campany and a visionary short story by celebrated novelist and Florida resident Lauren Groff.