Hurricane Season | Hannah Modigh

The series was photographed in southern Louisiana, where the threat of hurricanes arrives annually, but the storm around some people is felt daily, behind doors, within the individual. Memories never have time to heal, but are repressed. Hurricane Season is a metaphor for an atmosphere of living on the verge of eruption, for a sense that uncertainty, fear, and anger bubble beneath the deceptively calm surface.

Modigh was reminded of the cypress tree – tough, with its roots down deep and its knees above water. The bald cypress became Louisiana’s state tree in 1963. A year later, the Civil Rights Act banned discrimination on grounds of skin colour. But, as Bob Marley sang in ‘Slave Driver’, ‘Today they say that we are free, only to be chained in poverty.’ He reminded us of a vicious cycle, harder to escape than a hurricane. The people Modigh met seemed to her like wooden piles in the water, holding up the houses in the face of the storm with all its destructive power.

Initially, Modigh was interested in Louisiana because of its violent history and wanted to investigate if this flows down the generations. During her time there, she realised that fear of hurricanes and the undertone of aggression in large parts of society came from the same source: they were natural reactions to feelings of threat. But these emotions are passive and unproductive. Where weakness is undesirable, even dangerous, there should be an advantage in transforming fear into action. But in a macho landscape, it is more acceptable to be angry than scared.

Modigh could feel the storm coming.