WASHINGTON, DC.- An exhibition of documentary and studio photography by Bronx-based artist Samantha Box (b. 1977) is 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 are on view together. Confluences is the artist’s debut solo exhibition in Washington, D.C. An illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition.


Samantha Box, Female figure performance, The HMI Awards Ball, from the series “The Last Battle,” 2014; Archival inkjet print, 16 x 20 in.; Courtesy of the artist; © Samantha Box.

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 and says of her work, “I’m not here to prove or convince anyone of Black humanity.”


Samantha Box, Grand Prize, Runway, Sharae’s Playhouse, Part 2, from the series “The Last Battle,” 2015; Archival inkjet print, 20 x 16 in.; Courtesy of the artist; © Samantha Box.

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.


Samantha Box, Mirror #1, from the series “Caribbean Dreams,” 2019; Archival inkjet print, 20 x 16 in.; Courtesy of the artist; © Samantha Box.

“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.


Samantha Box, Multiple #3, from the series “Caribbean Dreams,” 2019; Archival inkjet print, 36 x 45 in.; Courtesy of the artist; © Samantha Box.

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.


Samantha Box, One Kind of Story, from the series “Caribbean Dreams,” 2020; Digital and physical collage with archival inkjet prints, 50 x 40 in.; Courtesy of the artist; © Samantha Box.

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.


Samantha Box, The Jamaican National Dish, from the series “Caribbean Dreams,” 2019; Archival inkjet print, 14 x 11 in.; Courtesy of the artist; © Samantha Box.

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.