Connie Samaras

Connie Samaras’ photographic and video work deals with constructions of history and the imaginary as they pertain to the vast changes in U.S. society and shifting formations of national identity. She does so by investigating a range of issues such as the legacies of social change movements, the political and psychological geographies embedded in the everyday, speculative landscape, and the function of nostalgia in an era of global capitalism. She is also interested in the potential of art as historical artifact, one that embraces paradox and the terrain of the unconscious. In 2004 she was awarded a National Science Foundation Artists and Writers Grant to photograph built environments at the South Pole, Antarctica. Titled V.A.L.I.S. (Vast Active Living Intelligence System, 2005-07) after Philip Dick’s science fiction novel of the same name, the photographs and videos making up this series ruminate on the simultaneous dystopic and utopic imaginings of the only landscape on earth where there are no indigenous peoples. Other recent awards include California Community Foundation/Getty Visual Artists Fellowship (2006), Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Visual Arts Fellowship C.O.L.A (2003), Anonymous Was A Woman Fellowship (2003), and the Adaline Kent Award, San Francisco Art Institute (2002). Her next photographic project, After the American Century, deals with Dubai, gender, and constructions of the future. Samaras has exhibited her work extensively. She is based in Los Angeles where she is represented by de Soto Gallery, and is a Professor in the Department of Studio Art at UC Irvine.