What exactly is a dream of the Caribbean, the birthplace of the Modern World? “Caribbean Dreams” is a montage examining structures of exodus and diaspora, while articulating hybrid Jamaican and Trinidadian diaspora consciousness, from Samantha Box’s embodied perspective.

Samantha Box is a Jamaican-born, Bronx (New York City)-based photographer. Of Black Jamaican and South Asian Trinidadian heritage, she creates complex images that explore a multitude of questions around diasporic identity—how are cultures, knowledge, and identities transformed across borders? How can one define space-for-self within multiple diasporas?

Her images complicate received notions of a singular home or place or origin. Ranging across genres of self-portraiture, landscape, and still-life, Box’s layered and experimental work is at once alluring and challenging.

Box holds an MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies from ICP-Bard College. Her work has been widely exhibited, notably in group shows at the Houston Center of Photography, the DePaul Art Museum, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, and the International Center of Photography. She has been in residence at Light Work and the Center for Photography at Woodstock, and has been awarded fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts, the Silver Eye Center of Photography, and En Foco Inc.

“Samantha Box: Caribbean Dreams” is the artist’s first museum solo-show. Curated by Mia Laufer, Ph.D. for the Des Moines Art Center, this exhibition is created in partnership with the National Museum for Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington D.C. Both the Art Center and NMWA will be staging concurrent exhibitions of Box’s work in Fall 2024, each highlighting a different facet of her practice. “Samantha Box: Caribbean Dreams” is accompanied by a catalogue with essays by Laufer, Dr. Orin Zahra, and a guest author.

Support for this exhibition is provided by: