‘This is all pink and attractive, but we are going to die’: Samoylova on photographing Florida’s climate

Cracked bubblegum-colored concrete, flooded swimming pools, uprooted palm trees and displaced alligators paint a new, unnerving picture of the climate crisis.

(CNN) — Russian-born American photographer Anastasia Samoylova loves “Barbie.” Not only did she wear a hot pink suit to the opening of her own photography exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in October, she also insisted on taking her teenage son to see Greta Gerwig’s 2023 film — considering it essential feminist viewing. “Is it perfect? No. But it addresses very complicated and divisive subjects,” Samoylova told CNN in a video call from her home in Florida. She recalls how Margot Robbie’s title character, Barbie, stops the euphoric dance floor in its tracks when she wonders aloud, “do you guys ever think about dying?” “That’s literally what I’ve been trying to communicate,” said Samoylova. “This is all pink and attractive, but we are going to die.”

Samoylova, whose work is currently on display at both the Met Museum in New York and the Saatchi Gallery in London, has garnered critical acclaim for her subtle, anxiety-inducing images of Florida’s collapsing pastel-pink landscapes. Her 2019 series “Flood Zone” — a nod to the unnervingly bureaucratic label that can often dictate life or death — is a surreal chronicle of an area decaying in real time.

Cracked bubblegum-colored concrete, flooded swimming pools, uprooted palm trees and displaced alligators paint a new, unnerving picture of the climate crisis. Samoylova’s images are a far cry from the visual language of starving polar bears and blazing wildfires that often saturate converage around the environment. “Everything is intertwined,” she said. “That’s why I think isolating climate change as something detached and abstract, and visually associated with melting ice caps, is very dangerous because we’re in the moment right now. Every political decision is going to affect us on this daily basis.”

Samoylova moved to Florida in 2016, where she was struck by the state’s severe weather events and aging infrastructure. She immediately began to document her new surroundings. Almost eight years on, “Flood Zone” feels more relevant than ever in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, the Category 3 storm that killed more than a dozen and left more than 2.6 million Floridians without power. Milton was the third hurricane in 2024 to make landfall in the state. But Samoylova doesn’t call herself an environmental photographer. “I’m averse to labels,” she said. “I live in Miami and the choice of medium itself, to me, comes with the responsibility to reflect on our time. Otherwise, why photograph?”

The insidious, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it approach to her observational photography is intentional. Several years of capturing political extremism, gentrification and environmental disintegration has given Samoylova time to think about how to package disastrous messaging. “How do you communicate these very complex subjects and make them relatable?” she asks. “The trickiest part is to not make them off-putting.” Come for the pink sidewalks that characterize the streets of Miami — as many tourists do — and stay for the subsequent feelings of existential dread. It’s a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, she says. “(Climate change) is stigmatized, and it’s become divisive, at least where I live in the US, especially in Florida. And who knows, it’s likely going to be erased from the conversation again.”

But beyond providing a record of Florida in crisis, there’s also a dark poetry to her work — and plenty of space for creative interpretation. Samoylova’s favorite pastime is haunting her own gallery installations, parking herself on a viewing bench or floating between visitors like a “ghost,” and tuning in to how people are reading her pictures. “It’s the best feeling,” she said, “Leaving the work open enough to where people can discuss it on their own terms without supplying too much of a didactic narrative.”

One image in particular is ripe for analysis. In “Gator” (2017), an alligator floats above the viewer, suspended in murky, acerbic green water. While Samoylova took the photo at a nature reserve, holding the lens close to the gator’s tank, there’s no real context to the animal’s surroundings. It could be anywhere — swimming through a flooded street or lying in wait beneath the surface of a flooded pool. “It’s an allegory,” said Samoylova. “Because they really do end up in people’s pools like that,” she said, adding that it felt like barely a month went by without a report of an alligator attack “But these beasts have been here forever. It’s their native habitat, so we are the ones encroaching, not them.”

Samoylova sees something “Ballardian” in the alligator photo, which she also chose to front her business card, particularly in relation to the British author J. G. Ballard’s 1962 dystopian novel “The Drowned World” which depicts a post-apocalyptic Earth consumed by water. “(The alligator) is kind of ascending over you, and you’re already on the bottom of that reservoir,” she said. “That’s what it feels like in Florida. I mean we’re sitting here today and it’s 29 degrees (Celsius) (84 degrees Fahrenheit). This is November.”

The series — along with Samoylova’s own personal perspective — is not supposed to be pessimistic, however. “I remain, not really an optimist, but hopeful,” she told CNN.

Her next project, titled “Transformations,” explores that sentiment — focusing primarily on capturing the many climate solutions already being implemented across the globe. Anything counts: From solar panels and green roofing to urban gardens and corporate initiatives.

“We need a bit of hope,” she said.

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