Abstract
Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York is proud to present Home/Land, an exhibition curated by Zoraida Lopez-Diago, Baxter St’s 2024 Guest Curatorial Initiative Recipient. Featuring works of photographers Samantha Box and Sheida Soleimani, Home/Land explores themes of belonging, displacement, family, and the personal and geopolitical histories that shape their lives.
The landscapes, wildlife, flora, and fauna depicted by Box and Soleimani become spaces for reimagining and inserting overlooked narratives into both the art world, and wider discourse. Food, in particular, emerges as a powerful symbol of both cultural identity and the commodification of people and the products they grow and harvest. As stewards of their respective legacies, Box and Soleimani keep nature and its sustenance as metaphors for growth, healing, and the preservation of place.
Samantha Box draws on her Caribbean heritage in her series Caribbean Dreams. Her evocative still lifes incorporate familial objects, food, plant life, while visually narrating stories rooted in her ancestral homeland. For Soleimani, wildlife rehabilitation serves as a metaphor for healing and care, employing the symbolism of birds to explore activism, and protest, while illuminating the shared trauma of families affected by conflict and war. Through their unique perspectives, these artists serve as talismans, weaving together complex narratives of migration and legacy, with the natural world acting as a site for regeneration and a keeper of memory. The exhibition invites viewers to reflect on these narratives and the intricate relationships between nature, identity, and the histories we both inherit and inhabit.