Anastasia Samoylova: Atlantic Coast

In a new body of work, a critically acclaimed photographer retraces Berenice Abbott’s 1954 photographic journey along the Eastern Seaboard, documenting dislocation, loss, and a shifting American dream.

In 1954, American photographer Berenice Abbott set out to document the historic US Route 1, already predicting seismic changes to small towns and major cities along the route brought by the rapidly expanding Interstate Highway System. Spanning all thirteen original colonies and beyond—from Fort Kent, Maine, to Key West, Florida—US Route 1 formed over the course of three hundred years from connecting sections of what was once known as the Atlantic Highway. Inspired by Abbott’s acute and poetic observations on life along Route 1 and on the seventieth anniversary of her project, Florida-based photographer Anastasia Samoylova ventures on her own journey to revisit those communities forever transformed by the interstate. Working in color and black and white, Samoylova provides a closer look at the American landscape irreversibly altered by the unrelenting expansion of industry, commerce, and development, as well as the displacement and tenacity of people and wildlife.

Copublished by Aperture and the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida.

Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 144
Number of images: 91
Publication date: 2025-11-18
Measurements: 9.37 x 11 x 0.62 inches
ISBN: 9781597115940

Anastasia Samoylova (born in Moscow, 1984) is a Miami-based photographer who explores the intersections of environmentalism, consumerism, politics, and the picturesque. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina; C/O Berlin; Victoria and Albert Museum, Dundee, Scotland; Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid and Barcelona; Amerikahaus Munich; George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; and Kunst Haus Wien, Vienna. She has published four critically acclaimed books: FloodZone (2019); Floridas (2022); Image Cities (2023), published in conjunction with her winning the inaugural KBr Photo Award; and Adaptation (2024).

Aruna D’Souza is a writer and critic based in New York. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times and 4Columns, where she is a member of the editorial advisory board. Her writing has also been published by The Wall Street Journal, ArtNews, Garage, Art Practical, CNN.com, Bookforum, Frieze, Momus, and Art in America.

Lauren Richman is the William and Sarah Ross Soter Senior Curator of Photography at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, and has held curatorial and research roles at the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, Bloomington; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; and Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth.