"Hyperreal and Deeply Fragile": Anastasia Samoylova Captures the Endless Contradictions of Miami

A city with a "surreal relationship between image and reality", Miami has shaped Anastasia Samoylova's documentary photography since she moved to the city in 2016, attuning her lens to the invisible forces that belie the city's gleaming façades.

Throughout the 20th Century, Miami has served as an enticing backdrop for many image-makers, from Brian De Palma's Scarface to Barry Lewis' photobook Miami Beach. In the 21st Century, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City further cemented this perspective in the collective imagination.

The city is uniquely photogenic yet its visual depictions often reinforce cliches of Miami as a neon-signed, vice-laden beach-body haven. Anastasia Samoylova's documentary photography defies those stereotypes, looking at Miami from a deeper angle. In her photographs, Samoylova confronts the utopian idea of a tropical paradise and focuses her lens on the impact of over tourism and hedonistic excess.

In 2016, Samoylova became the first living woman in 33 years to headline a show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. More recently, she has published Atlantic Coast with Aperture, which retraces American photographer Berenice Abbott’s 1954 photographic roadtrip on the historic US Route 1. We caught up with the photographer to talk about the influence of Miami on her work.

“I photograph Miami because it offers endless contradictions. It is celebratory and anxious, seductive and threatened...”

What role does Miami play in your latest book, Atlantic Coast?

"Miami is both the beginning and emotional foundation of Atlantic Coast. It is the place where I first began thinking deeply about the relationship between climate, culture, and the built environment. The project follows the eastern seaboard, but Miami frames the narrative because it embodies many of the themes explored throughout the book. It is a city defined by water, vulnerability, reinvention, and an almost surreal relationship between image and reality. In many ways, Miami is the lens through which the rest of the coast is viewed."

What is it about Miami that compels you to photograph it?

“Miami fascinates me because it is both hyperreal and deeply fragile. It is a city that performs itself with remarkable conviction. The colours, the architecture, the reflective surfaces, the advertisements, the tropical abundance, the tension between utopia and precarity, all invite a kind of heightened seeing. I photograph Miami because it offers endless contradictions. It is celebratory and anxious, seductive and threatened, visually rich yet shaped by invisible forces such as sea level rise and global tourism. That complexity draws me in constantly."

How has living in Miami shaped you on a personal level, as an artist, and in the themes you explore?

"Living in Miami changed the course of my practice. Before moving here, I worked primarily in the studio, rooted in painting and constructed imagery. Miami shifted me toward a more sustained documentary approach, and I have now been working this way for nearly ten years. The city itself demanded that shift. Its constant flux, its climate anxieties, its vivid surfaces, and its deep contradictions made me want to engage directly with the world rather than invent it from the studio. On a personal level, Miami has taught me to pay attention to transitions, to embrace uncertainty, and to see beauty and fragility intertwined. It has become both the catalyst for my themes and the place that continually renews my curiosity."

Miami has a distinct architectural style and color palette. How have these aesthetic attributes influenced how you photograph the city?

"Miami’s color palette is inseparable from its identity. The pastel tones, the bleached whites, the neon accents, and the interplay between tropical light and reflective surfaces all inform how I compose and interpret scenes. The city teaches you to look for gradients of blue and green, for improbable pinks and sun-bleached yellows, for the way shadows cut sharp geometric shapes across facades. Miami’s architecture, with its blend of modernism, deco, and improvisation, encourages a formalism in my framing. The visual language here has deeply influenced how I work not only in Miami but everywhere else."

What do you hope viewers learn about Miami through your images. Do your photographs challenge or reinforce viewers’ assumptions about the city?

"I hope viewers see a version of Miami that holds both beauty and complexity. Many people arrive with preconceived images shaped by pop culture or tourism. My photographs neither reject nor fully embrace those assumptions. Instead, they look at the city with curiosity and precision. I want viewers to notice the layers beneath the surface: the vulnerability, the constant negotiation with water, the improvisations of daily life, the resilience and the surreal charm. If the images challenge assumptions, it is by widening the frame to include both the spectacle and the subtle details that define Miami’s reality."

What is it like being an artist in Miami?

"As a first-generation American, I have always been aware of how belonging operates in different places. New York often feels like a city of established immigrant communities, with hierarchies already in place. Miami, by contrast, is a place where many of the newest transplants arrive from all over the world. It is a city where you are one among many with an accent. Having spent the first half of my American life in the Midwest, I do not take this for granted. The diversity of exiles, expats, and newcomers is woven into the fabric of Miami’s demographic reality. That mix creates a sense of openness and possibility. For me, being an artist here means working within a community that is constantly evolving, culturally expansive, and more welcoming to different backgrounds and trajectories. It has shaped not only my practice but also my sense of home."

Anastasia Samoylova's book 'Atlantic Coast' is available to purchase from Aperture.