Hanna Granlund lives in the greater Stockholm region, Sweden. Her artistic work, academic interest and passion for environmental issues can be traced back to early teenage years, when friends and news sources began to grant her greater awareness of the global crisis we are facing. Her art is characterised by a curiosity and willingness to explore many different disciplines, from ceramics to textiles and organic materials.
She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Art History and a master’s degree in Heritage Studies from Stockholm University in 2023. Art, human society and nature are all intimately connected according to Hanna, who means that all art is ultimately derived from nature, materially and spiritually. Her art, which incorporates flowers and leaves, as well as shells and bones found in nature displays the non-existence of the nature-culture boundary.
While using these “raw” materials, it is important to remember the vast amount of labour, energy and coordination that goes into producing most material objects in our society. In her work, Hanna is motivated to integrate and control more steps of the material creation process – Painting with ink markers led her to start creating her own coloured inks with materials at hand, while an interest in knitting, crochet and nalbinding resulted in a wish to create her own yarn from leftover felting wool.
Throughout the years, Hanna has sought to embrace and embody a cross-sectorial understanding of the world through volunteer work in environmental restoration, festivals and community nights. As a member of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, she has worked to preserve so-called “culture landscapes”, which are ecological niches created by small-scale agricultural practices that sustain a great variety of animal and plant species. These human-curated landscapes need to be continually sustained and helps remind us that the nature-culture dichotomy does not have to be exploitative in the ways it currently is. In some regards, Hanna considers nature restoration to be an artistic creation process and a creative, collaborative discipline.
