We decided to use the horizontal photographs of the topography of South Florida – many of which were shot from a helicopter – in black and white, as visual punctuation marks, but also to locate the viewer. Most of the photographs are color vertical pictures, often of small but significant details. As well as writing for the book, David Campany helped to edit and sequence it. The decision to use black and white came about in the editing process. What was the criteria to make the black and white ones? Through that, I was able to get to a position where I was making images that were not simple-minded critiques or inversions of the clichés, but were layered and complex meditations.įloodZone is structured by 69 color and 17 black-and-white photographs, which to some viewers may come as a surprise. This seems to be Samoylova’s approach.” What was your way to achieve that?ĭavid is a wonderful writer, I think, and he understood what I was trying to achieve, which was to accept the visual clichés, to go with them, and to come to an understanding of their power. In his essay for the book David Campany enlightened us by mentioning this principle about your work: “One can try to avoid the clichés, or one can push through them and emerge on the other side. Spread from FloodZone book (left: Pink Sidewalk, 2017 right: Construction in South Beach, 2017) So yes, both projects approach the psychical phenomenon of ‘image overload’ but in different ways. It’s hard not to look at the place and recall the countless representations one has seen. And when there are no actual images to see, the mind fills up with them. But I found I was in a place that often felt like one of my studio tableaux! Miami is such an artificial place. Having been working in the studio I wasn’t expecting to go out into the world and make observational images. Both projects are certainly concerned with the pervasive nature of images, and how they shape our understanding of place and space. It’s great that you saw the connection between Landscape Sublime and FloodZone. Leafing through the images of FloodZone, I can feel the same quality, that one of your intentions was to create visually the third dimension in a two dimensional medium. In your Landscape Sublime series something that really impressed me is that you didn’t use photoshop for the constructions but you sculpted the images into a tableau. Would it be possible to make images that allude to it in one way or another? My project FloodZone started from an interest in this tension. Everyone knows this but cannot quite accept it. Hurricanes are getting more frequent and the sea level is rising. Miami is at the forefront of climate change. I soon saw that the familiar image of the place – which is the propaganda of tourism and real estate, basically – was very different to the reality. Miami has a reputation as a kind of leisure paradise – a place for visiting, not for living in. I realised I was more fascinated with the image than with the architecture itself.Ĭan you tell us about your early stages of your new life and also the beginning of this project, back in 2016 when you moved to Miami? In its translation of three dimensions into two, photography both documents and transforms. I got very interested with what the camera could do with space. When studying architecture, I made many 3D models which I then had to photograph. Was there a specific moment when you realized that photography was a medium you were particularly interested in? Also you have studied Architecture and interior design. You are a multidisciplinary artist who uses photography a lot. Keeping her style, Anastasia made a book that is as effective as a good political speech which is not being labeled as such. Floodzone points out the consequences of climate change in the southern United States, without the intention of making a visualization of disaster. Anastasia Samoylova is a Russian-American artist who moves between observational photography, studio practice and installation.
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