Nanna Hänninen
Space II
Space II, 2000
C-print/Diasec, 110 x 140 cm
Collection Fotomuseum Winterthur
2005-029-003
© Nanna Hänninen
b. 1973 (Rovaniemi, FI), lives and works in Kuopio, FI
Nanna Hänninen takes a personally motivated approach to her work, turning from the teeming overkill of the outside world to a calm, inner world of thoughts and ideas. Her subjects are minimal, pared-down compositions such as a stack of papers neatly ordered on a wooden support; white dots stuck on to a yellowish background, shown in clear focus in the middle ground yet blurred elsewhere in the picture so that the circles ‘run’ and lose their form; toothpicks aligned to form two bands as sharp as picket fences; twelve white boxes stacked to form a block three boxes by four; ash on paper, scattered all over or divided into discrete zones representing order and chaos. Her titles Fear and Security, Keep under Control, Information Failure – underscore the fact that these are conceptual images, visual aphorisms, emblematic abstractions. They represent ideas about the world, telling of tensions, opposites, overload and error. Hänninen talks about this sense of tension in her book Fear and Security: “Instead of order, I started to see chaos in things. I have been trying to encapsulate the idea of a society that is filing, sorting and systemizing things in order to be more secure and organized. I see a great paradox in this, because in setting up security measures you generate insecurity about the unknown … this series [Fear and Security] is about the fear of losing control.” Hänninen’s series of pure white philosophical images evoke both innocence and a sense of eternity.