PHOTO:Anastasia Samoylova-Harbor

Anastasia Samoylova’s work moves across photography, painting, and installation. Working between observational imagery and studio-based intervention, she has established a singular practice that examines how contemporary life is shaped, mediated, and mythologized through images. Her work engages the entanglement of environmental crisis, consumer spectacle, and political imagination, revealing the tensions between surface and structure, seduction and instability, reality and representation.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Gallerie d’Italia Archive

Through more than sixty photographs, Anastasia Samoylova in “Harbor”, her first solo exhibition in Italy, explores seven European port cities (Genoa, Venice, Rotterdam, Marseille, Lisbon, Athens and Istanbul) observing ports as places where the dynamics of global trade, transformations of the urban landscape and the relationships between human activity and the environment intersect.

In “Harbor”, the port is much more than an infrastructure for the transit of goods: it is a constantly changing landscape, where the consequences of globalisation and the tensions between economic development, technological innovation and the memory of places become visible. Terminals, cranes, containers, warehouses and machinery make up scenes characterised by the industrial dimension and increasing automation.

Samoylova’s gaze also turns to the people who live in and pass through these spaces. In the shipyards, the work of the labourers engaged in vessel maintenance brings visibility to the activities that are essential to the functioning of ports. Images focused on visitors and cruise ship passengers reveal the tourist side of contemporary waterfronts but, at the same time, behind the apparent efficiency and appeal of these spaces lie the stories of precarious work, migration and social transformations that accompany their development.

The research is part of Anastasia Samoylova’s ongoing exploration of the contemporary landscape and environmental transformations. In the “FloodZone” project, which she began after moving to Miami Beach in 2016, the artist documented the effects of rising sea levels in Florida. In” Harbor”, the focus is on port cities and the infrastructure that defines their identity, presenting a complex picture of the relationship between the coastal landscape, economic activities and human presence. The environmental dimension thus emerges within a broader reflection on the transformations affecting territories and on the ways in which contemporary societies inhabit and modify them.

Samoylova’s work is in the tradition of documentary photography, but she develops a personal, rigorous and poetic language. The images arise from careful and prolonged observation of reality: reflections, windows and visual superimpositions connect different elements, bringing together multiple layers of interpretation within the same frame. Photography thus becomes a tool for questioning the landscape, rather than describing it, inviting the public to linger over the details and reconsider what they think they know.

The research engages with two major figures in the history of photography: Germaine Krull, a pioneer of a modern perspective on the industrial landscape, and Luigi Ghirri, who transformed the observation of everyday places into a reflection on the relationship between image and reality. In this dialogue between past and present, “Harbor” develops an original interpretation of European port cities, where historical memory intertwines with the economic, technological and cultural transformations of our time.

The images in “Harbor” thus convey the complexity of contemporary port landscapes, poised between industrial function and tourist attraction, traces of the past and promises of development. Their beauty cannot be separated from the economic and social systems that shape them: through a careful eye for detail and contradictions, Samoylova invites us to rethink our relationship with the sea and with cities, beyond a purely functional or spectacular vision.

In the final room, a projection created especially for the exhibition brings Samoylova’s photographs into dialogue with an original musical composition by Clive Chang – a classically trained composer and pianist, and president of YoungArts, a national non-profit organisation that identifies and supports young artists across the United States. Drawing inspiration from the photographs, Chang composed a score for various instruments – including piano, strings, brass and percussion – creating a sonic dialogue that echoes and amplifies some of the tensions at the heart of “Harbor” the interaction between water and metal, stillness and movement, arrival and departure. His direct knowledge of many of the cities portrayed and their distinctive material characteristics guided his choices regarding the harmonic structure and instrumentation. The aim was not to replicate the sounds of the environment, but to further highlight the tensions evoked by Samoylova’s depiction of these places.

Photo left: Anastasia Samoylova, Cargo Ship, Lisbon, 2026 © Anastasia Samoylova, Courtesy the artist and Gallerie d’Italia. Photo right: Anastasia Samoylova, Reflection in Model Ship, Istanbul, Turkey, 2026 © Anastasia Samoylova, Courtesy the artist and Gallerie d’Italia

Info: Curator: Emanuela Mazzonis di Pralafera, Gallerie d’Italia – Turin, Piazza San Carlo 156, Turin, Italy, Duration : 22/10/1026-7/2/027, Days & Hours : Tue-Sun 9:30-19:00, www.gallerieditalia.com/en/