Anastasia Samoylova: Atlantic Coast

Anastasia Samoylova: Atlantic Coast presents a new body of work in which the artist traces the enduring complexities of American identity through a contemporary lens. Inspired by Berenice Abbott’s 1954 project documenting the historic US Route 1, Samoylova embarks on her own photographic journey from Key West in Florida to Fort Kent in Maine, examining the national landscape as a site of both mythmaking and fracture.

Through a combination of color and black-and-white documentary photography, Samoylova captures the layered interplay between the natural environment, human intervention, and the pervasive forces of political ideology, capitalism, and mass consumerism. Rather than orienting the viewer geographically, she constructs a visual narrative shaped by recurring phenomena and shared symbols, revealing how nostalgia operates as a tool in the ongoing negotiation between reality and idealized memory.

Atlantic Coast is a project of profound social and historical resonance, offering a timely meditation on the construction of place, the search for authenticity, and the longing for a newly imagined America, whether inspired by hope, apathy, or indignation. Samoylova’s work invites viewers to consider the landscape not merely as backdrop but as a mirror reflecting the contradictions and aspirations of the national psyche.

Anastasia Samoylova: Atlantic Coast was organized by Lauren Richman, PhD, the William and Sarah Ross Soter Senior Curator of Photography at the Norton Museum of Art. At the Johnson Museum, its presentation was organized by Molly Kalkstein, the Gary and Ellen Davis Curator of Photography, and made possible by a generous gift from the Hintsa Family.