Samantha Box

Samantha Box is a photographer whose lush and layered work intrigued me and drew me in as soon as I encountered it. I was reminded of something photographer Alejandro Cartagena said in Sasha Wolf’s great book Photo Work:

“I think in layers. The more layers a project has, the more possibility there is that one of those layers will relate to someone. Something like this: The project needs to be aesthetically, technically, conceptually, and historically relevant; have a personal connection, pull toward some kind of social commentary, be able to show personal and artistic vulnerability; and so on.”

Looking at Samantha’s work, I say to myself, “yes yes yes yes ” because her images are so beautifully answering Cartagena’s wishlist. What also struck me about her work, particularly in her Caribbean Dreams - Constructions series is the way the photographs break open a historical form in a relevant way not simply as critique, but to enlarge it and make the form more expansive. Samantha’s images remind us that the real power of artists is to see the world not simply in categories and niches, but in all its complexity and creativity and beauty and pain and sadness and possibility and all the places and possibilities in between. I asked Samantha to tell me a little more about her work and thoughts on photography:

Tell me about your work
The main idea that undergirds my work is an articulation of the ways in which identity – and by extension, community, networks of care and survival, ideas of home and belonging – are formed within spaces of sociopolitical and physical liminality such as Blackness, queerness and diaspora.

I love full images where all parts of the frame are actively being used, an image that carries a satisfying sense of lushness and tension.

How has your work helped to shape the photos you make?
I’m really fortunate in that most of my work that I’ve engaged in to support my photography has informed my work. For example, for much of “The Shelter, The Street”, I was working at Contact Press Images. I spent a lot of time working with, and learning from, amazing photographs, and this translated directly into my work at Sylvia’s Place.

After, I began teaching photography to at-risk queer and TGNB youth of color at the same time that I began to make the images that comprise “The Last Battle.” Some of the young people that I photographed at Kiki ballroom functions were also my students. It was my students’ work – and community documentation made by the wider Kiki scene - that prompted me to confront the limitations of documentary practice: among them, who has the authority to create a narrative of a community? In other words, I realized that the Kiki Scene was expertly doing the work of documentation already, and so, I decided to take a step back, which partly informed my decision to go to graduate school.

I still support myself through teaching. Researching, editing, and presenting work for in-class lectures – with an emphasis on destabilizing the historical and contemporary white/European/American/male canon - means that I look at work made by a wide range of people, working in a wide range of styles/practices. Regarding my practice, it means encountering work that inspires, summons indifference, or sometimes repulses. This means that I’m constantly thinking of where my work stands, how it’s in conversation with other photographer’s work, thoughts, and practices. All of this shapes my work.

Is there a photo book that’s held a lot of significance for you as a photographer?
Milton Rogovin’s “Triptychs: Buffalo’s Lower West Side Revisited” is a book – and series - that had a profound impact on me when I first saw it; the same is true of the next (unpublished) iteration of this work, which is a series of quadtychs. This work presented a way of working with a community over time - of making quiet, nuanced, thoughtful and collaborative pictures - that I was hungry for when I encountered it in 2005, and which, at that time, was vanishingly rare. Whenever I think about the arcs of the lives in these multi-part images – the births, deaths, connections, estrangements, generations - I am deeply moved.

Is there anything you’ve had to ‘unlearn’ about photography to make the artworks you now make?
Apart from composition, exposure and lighting, I’m actively trying to unlearn everything.

What advice would you offer to others who see your work and want to get into photography?
The image comes first, not the camera, analog/digital, social media. Work at images that are singularly, visually your own. Share this work with people whose work you respect, and who you can trust with your mistakes and questions. Grow together and support each other!

Has the pandemic influenced your work?
From the early days of our current moment, I realized that the only thing that I could count on was my work. I have learned to trust myself, to follow my ideas, and to give myself a wide berth for experimentation and iteration.

Looking ahead, what are some goals or hopes for your own work in the years to come?
In the next year, I am determined to solidify my studio practice, and to resolve this sense of disconnection between the different bodies of work that make up Caribbean Dreams. I’d also like to start thinking of the best way to archive all of my INVISIBLE work.

Lastly, we’d love to know about what’s happening with your art practice right now? Where, besides the web, might people encounter your work?
My work is currently in a number of places: Subject-Object at St. Lawrence University (until 2/26), Eco-Urgency: Now or Never Part ll at Lehman College Art Gallery (until 4/23), and Picturing Black Girlhood: Moments of Possibility at Express Newark (until 7/6). A portrait of artist Zachary Fabri – part of Beyond the Flat, a collaboration conceived of by artist and activist Ted Kerr – will be shared at Zachary’s performance at Weeksville on 3/19. And, I will be having a solo show at Light Work in the Fall!