Senayt Samuel (born 1969)[1] is an Eritrean-born photographer, based in London, England. Her work is informed by her family's deportation from Ethiopia and has been included in exhibitions at the Royal Festival Hall and Tate Britain in London.
Samuel was born in Asmara, Eritrea, and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and New Haven, Connecticut.[2] She studied Art History and Fine Arts at Paier College of Art in Hamden, Connecticut, and at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven.[2] While studying abroad as a teenager, her family were deported from Ethiopia, which is a topic that informs her work as a photographer.[3][4] She moved to London in 2002,[5] where she gained an MA degree in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster.[2]
She interned as a photojournalist at the New Haven Register, then worked freelance as a photographer in Connecticut and New York.[2]
Her Id series (2003) comprises portraits taken in front of mirrors.[4]
She has a daughter, born in 2005.[6]