Hannah Modigh Hurricane Season
Boy and Cherry Picker Truck, 2012
Series
In southern Louisiana, where the threat of hurricanes arrives annually, the storm around some people is felt daily, behind doors, within the individual. Memories do not heal, but are repressed. Hurricane Season is a metaphor for living on the verge of eruption, for a sense that uncertainty, fear and anger bubble beneath the calm surface.
Initially, Modigh was interested in Louisiana because of its violent history and wanted to investigate if this flows down the generations. She came to realise that fear of hurricanes and the widespread undertone of aggression 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.
About the photographer
Stockholm, Sweden, 1980
Swedish
Stockholm, Sweden
About Hannah Modigh
Modigh spent her childhood in India and the Swedish countryside. She was educated at the Nordic School of Photography and the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm.
Her work sits in a socially engaged and autobiographical documentary tradition, with recurring themes of heritage, memory and time. She works with analogue film and photographic installations.
Modigh’s work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Europe and the United States, including at Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2012); Landskrona Photo Festival, Sweden (2013); Münchner Stadtmuseum, Munich (2013); Sune Jonsson Centrum för Dokumentärfotografi, Umeå, Sweden (2018); DIPE (Dali International Photography Exhibition), Yunnan, China (2019); Gallery of Photography, Dublin (2020); House of Culture, Stockholm (2022) and Les Rencontres d’Arles, France (2023).
Her long-term project Hillbilly Heroin, Honey was exhibited in several museums in Sweden, Denmark and Finland and in 2010 won the Swedish Photo Book Prize. Her series have also won the European Photo Exhibition Award in 2011, the Lars Tunbjörk prize in Sweden in 2017 and this year’s Lennart af Petersens prize, also in Sweden. Her work is held in collections including Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The most recent of Modigh’s eight photobooks is Archive of Longing, published by Fotohof in 2022.