WASHINGTON—An exhibition of documentary and studio photography by Bronx-based artist Samantha Box (b. 1977) will be on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) from November 20, 2024, through March 23, 2025. Box is known for her arresting and nuanced work that shares stories of lives shaped by the intersections of nationality, race, class, gender and sexual orientation. Samantha Box: Confluences presents a survey of photographs from two series spanning 20 years of work, “Invisible” (2005–18) and “Caribbean Dreams” (2018–ongoing). This presentation marks the first time these series will be on view together. Confluences is the artist’s debut solo exhibition in Washington, D.C. An illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

In her breakthrough series “Invisible,” Box photographed a community of young people living at Sylvia’s Place, an emergency shelter for unhoused queer youth in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. In 2011, Box began documenting at-risk transgender and nonbinary youth participating in Kiki ballroom pageants and performances. The Kiki scene was established as a queer alternative to traditional ballroom, which excluded members of the Black and Brown LGBTQIA+ community. Her images depict grief, joy, inner conflict and resolve, signifying the intense bonds and chosen families built by young people who often lost their homes and faced discrimination after revealing their sexual identities to relatives and loved ones. Box sees the “Invisible” series as an archive for the community that she has photographed for more than a decade.

In 2018, Box shifted from documentary photography to a studio-based practice in her ongoing series “Caribbean Dreams.” As the child of a Black Jamaican father and Indian Trinidadian mother who grew up in New Jersey, Box explores her own Black, queer, immigrant experience and diasporic cultural identity. Staging color still lifes that recall the lush tableaux of 17th-century Dutch paintings, Box connects imperial expansion and the long-lasting impacts of colonialism through images of sumptuous ripe fruit and vegetables. These images reveal trade route histories and evoke ideas of survival in foreign lands. Her work also includes collaged elements of family heirlooms, self-portraits and vintage photographs, through which she explores gaps in understanding and generational knowledge.

“The works in Samantha Box: Confluences illustrate how photography can become a generative medium for self-exploration, provocative inquiry and creative discovery,” said NMWA Associate Curator Orin Zahra, who organized the exhibition. “In her layered, textured and poetic images, Box examines the ways that identity is formed in transitional spaces, whether turning her lens on the pockets of New York City that become reinscribed as queer sites or the migration of people, food and knowledge across geographic borders.”

Samantha Box: Confluences is a collaboration with the Des Moines Art Center (DMAC), whose separate but related concurrent exhibition, Samantha Box: Caribbean Dreams, runs from October 11, 2024, to January 19, 2025. The exhibition is generously supported by the members of NMWA.

Exhibition Publication

DMAC is producing a catalogue, the first monograph on the artist, featuring essays by NMWA Associate Curator Orin Zahra, DMAC Associate Curator Mia Laufer and writer and critic Erica N. Cardwell, as well as a conversation between Box and artist Firelei Báez. The 136-page, full-color publication presents nuanced insights into various facets of Box’s evolving practice.

About Samantha Box

Samantha Box (b. 1977, Kingston, Jamaica) holds an MFA in advanced photographic studies from the International Center of Photography (ICP)-Bard College program and a certificate in photojournalism and documentary studies from the ICP. Her work has been exhibited at the Houston Center for Photography, the DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York City; Light Work, Syracuse, New York; the Open Society Foundation, New York City; the ICP Museum, New York City; and the annual summer photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles, France. Box has been an artist-in-residence at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, New York; the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York; and Light Work, Syracuse. She has held fellowships with the Bronx Museum; En Foco Photography, Bronx, New York; and Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh.

In 2012, Box was profiled by Time magazine for her ongoing work photographing Sylvia’s Place. She is a two-time winner of the New York Foundation for the Arts/New York State Council on the Arts fellowship in photography, in 2010 and 2022. In 2023, Box was shortlisted for the Aperture Portfolio Prize, the Louis Roederer Foundation’s Discovery Award and the Prix De La Photo Madame Figaro. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Harvard Art Museums. Box lives and works in the Bronx, New York.

National Museum of Women in the Arts

The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is the first museum in the world solely dedicated to championing women through the arts. With its collections, exhibitions, programs and online content, the museum inspires dynamic exchanges about art and ideas. NMWA advocates for better representation of women and nonbinary artists and serves as a vital center for thought leadership, community engagement and social change. NMWA addresses the gender imbalance in the presentation of art by bringing to light important women artists of the past while promoting great women artists working today. The collection highlights a wide range of works in a variety of mediums by artists including Rosa Bonheur, Louise Bourgeois, Lalla Essaydi, Lavinia Fontana, Frida Kahlo, Hung Liu, Zanele Muholi, Faith Ringgold, Niki de Saint Phalle and Amy Sherald.

NMWA is located at 1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. It is open Tues.–Sun., 10 a.m.–5 p.m. and closed on Mondays and select holidays. Admission is $16 for adults, $13 for D.C. residents and visitors 70 and over, and free for visitors 21 and under. Admission is free the first Sunday and second Wednesday of each month. For information, call 202-783-5000, visit nmwa.org, Broad Strokes blog, Facebook or Instagram.

Media Contacts

National Museum of Women in the Arts
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Emma Filar, efilar@nmwa.org

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