Samantha Box (b. 1977, Kingston, Jamaica) uses photography to question societal structures, while also expressing her post-colonial critique of the medium itself. The artist’s two major bodies of work, “The INVISIBLE Archive” and “Caribbean Dreams,” are now on view in Samantha Box: Confluences at NMWA. Seen together for the first time, these series reveal layered conversations around the intersectionality of nationality, race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. In this two-part series, NMWA Associate Curator Orin Zahra shares insights about each body of work.

The INVISIBLE Archive

Box began “The INVISIBLE Archive” in 2005, during an assignment as a student at the International Center of Photography, when she was asked to document a community. The project led her to Sylvia’s Place, an emergency shelter for unhoused LGBTQIA+ youth located in the basement of the Metropolitan Community Church in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. Box’s photographs signify the intense bonds between the young residents, who often faced discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality, and class.

Although these individuals’ time at the shelter was short, their strong emotions—grief, joy, and inner conflict or resolve—are palpable in Box’s photographs. In one work, a young woman named Cocco sits by her mother’s gravestone. The pained expression on her face, handwritten notes on a flower bed, and a small sign that says “Happy Mother’s Day” reveal the depth of her tragedy. As Box explains, her mother’s death forced Cocco into the foster system, which she escaped, seeking refuge in the streets.

Box aimed to avoid catering to an audience who did not know unhoused youth. Her images, powerfully bearing witness to young people’s intimate and introspective moments, are devoid of the romanticism often associated with subject matter that has been exoticized or categorized as “other.” Box’s photographs are not meant to generate surface-level sympathy from viewers; instead, they became an archive for the community. As she continued working on the series over many years, Box grew to be a close friend of many of her subjects and a part of their chosen families.

While teaching at-risk transgender and nonbinary youth at New York City’s Hetrick-Martin Institute in 2011, Box began photographing the Kiki ballroom scene in the series “The Last Battle.” Ballroom grew in the late twentieth century as an alternative to early twentieth-century drag balls, which excluded members of the Black and Brown LGBTQIA+ community. Around 2010, community members created Kiki as their own underground ballroom scene, which became a safe haven for many queer youth of color. Kiki houses focus on youth leadership, each one composed of a designated mother and father as well as children. They gather for monthly balls with competitions involving raucous performance-art battles as well as messaging of safe sex and STI testing.

In these images, Box catches the youth mid-performance, surrounded by communal support. Energy and jubilation pulse throughout the photographs. The figures gesture toward one another, applaud fellow performers on stage, and pose with self-assurance. There is no sense of voyeurism, as the intended viewer is not an outsider looking in, but one who shares in the experiences of the scene. Performances take place in a multifaceted space that offers support and belonging.

Join Us!

Samantha Box: Confluences in on view at NMWA through March 23, 2025. The artist will be in conversation with filmmaker Kristen Lovell (pictured in Kristen, on 34th Street, on her way to work on the stroll (2008)) at NMWA on Wednesday, January 29, 2025, in Fresh Talk: Photography and Advocacy.