AS BLACK AS YOUR HAT by Hanna Liden

Hanna Liden brings her photographic work to a small 36 page book titled “AS BLACK AS YOUR HAT”. Liden’s interesting past contributes to her overall approach to photography. Born to a family of scientists, her atheist background brought her a keen interest in those who worshiped and maintained religion. Furthermore, her inventive style includes the use of props and actors to capture the mood and convey a sort of self-determined symbolism. The AS BLACK AS YOUR HAT book is available now via OHWOW.

Hanna Liden, the New York–based photographer by way of Stockholm and London, makes pictures that are hard to pin down. Their deliberate elusiveness is part of the charm that made the curators of the 2006 Whitney Biennial and the gallerists of Half Gallery fall for her images. Liden, 32, has an uncanny ability to marry pagan naturalism with a Lord of the Flies-esque apocalyptic abandon — but not without a sense of humor. Her atheist Scandinavian upbringing and love of horror movies sheds light onto her sharpened aesthetic. “My parents are scientists, and I grew up without religion — almost against religion — in a socialist society,” she says. “So I had an attraction or envy for people who believed in heaven and afterlife and stuff like that. I used to be obsessed with death but not so much anymore.” If her pictures — with masks, surreal landscapes and self-invented symbolism — tell a story, that’s because Liden assembles the shots like a film director, complete with actors and props. “I’m influenced by cinema more than contemporary art. I love [Ingmar] Bergman. I grew up with him. My grandmother really liked him, but my parents thought he was too conservative. I also love David Lynch and David Cronenberg.” The Swedish shutterbug is currently working on a book of photos and predicts she’ll make a film sooner or later. “I used to read a lot of science-fiction books when I was young. My pictures are influenced by dystopia after a catastrophe, but they are also very idealistic,” says our Bergmanian heroine.

- Carol Lee for Paper Magazine

Soft cover, 6 x 8.5 in., 36 pages published on the occassion of Hanna Liden’s solo exhibition at Half Gallery 2010.