In December 1997, at age 30, she was treated for colon cancer. Then in 2000, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She practices yoga and meditation, of which she has previously said: ‘I wouldn’t be able to survive everything without the meditation that I do. It’s what I think has made me able to cope with the madness.’
Sam was born in Croydon and grew up near Streatham Common in south London, with her younger sister Ashley and her mother Geraldine and father David.
Her father left the family when she was nine which she has previously described as a ‘sudden, very weird and abrupt’ split. She didn’t see her dad for the next 10 years.
Sam went to Beacon Community College in East Sussex and later attended Goldsmiths, University of London.
She then began exhibiting fine-art photography in the early 1990s and began working on her filmmaking with short videos during this time.
She was nominated for the Turner prize in 1998, and was the winner of Most Promising Artist award at the 1997 Venice Biennale.
