Anatomy of a Descent

Anatomy of a Descent for Hanna Ljungh

Hanna Ljungh explores the relationship between the organic and the inorganic, between man and mountain. She devotes particular attention to the matter we call stone, soil, land, earth, and contemplates notions such as the Anthropocene, the distribution of resources, and what people are ultimately made of.

The book Anatomy of a Descent presents Hanna Ljungh’s oeuvre through a selection of her work from 2011 to 2018, as well as texts written by philosopher and art critic Lars-Erik Hjertström Lappalainen, music critic and researcher in aesthetics Johan Redin, and poet Jonas Gren. In addition, there is an excerpt from philosopher Jonna Bornemark’s book Det omätbaras renässans (The Renaissance of the Immeasurable, 2018), with a conversation between Associate Professor in Curating Lisa Rosendahl and Hanna Ljungh added as notes in the margins of the text.

The different colored papers in the book, as well as elements of stone paper, link back to the materials and spaces that Hanna Ljungh works with. Through typographic compositions and inversions, the text masses manifest different layers and levels, vertically as well as horizontally. 

A selection of objects from the series Curiosity Cabinets: You, Me, Rock, Mountain: Commodities of the Quantified Universe (2017–2018) as well as the performance and sound installation Seismic Event (2017) are interpreted graphically by Sandra Praun & Oscar Guermouche.

The special edition also contains details from I Am Mountain—Measurements (2015). The work consists of a rumbling sound based on Hanna Ljungh’s recorded readings of altitude measurements of the southern peak of Kebnekaise since 1880. A seismograph constructed by the artist herself reacts to the sound and registers it on a rolling strip of paper. The cover of the special edition is made of parts of the printout. I Am Mountain—Measurements was first exhibited in 2016 at the Anna Bohman Gallery (formerly AnnaElle Gallery) in Stockholm. The printout we used for the cover was made at the exhibition Arctis at the Biological Museum in Stockholm on September 16, 2018. Every cover is unique, signed and stamped. 

Hanna Ljungh is an artist, born in 1974 in Washington, DC, USA, living and working in Stockholm. She obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Parsons School of Design in New York, and her master’s degree at the Department of Fine Art at Konstfack—University of Arts, Crafts, and Design in Stockholm. Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as Moderna Museet in Malmö, Kunsthall Trondheim, Fotografisk Center in Copenhagen, Lokal 30 in Warsaw, and Pohang Museum of Steel Art in South Korea.

Ljungh’s work Curiosity Cabinet (Lithium 6 mg): You, Me, Rock, Mountain-Commodities of the Quantified Universe (Hanging Equilibrium) was on display in the Praun & Guermouche showroom, a satellite to the exhibition Editorial Thinking at Index—The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, February 19 – April 18, 2021.