Anna Clarén (born 1972) is a Swedish photographer and educator. [1]
Holding (2006) won Best Photobook in the Swedish Photo Book Prize. [2] She has had solo exhibitions at The House of Culture [3] and Fotografiska in Stockholm, [4] and at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen in France. [5] Clarén's work is held in the collection of Moderna Museet in Stockholm. [6]
She leads the Nordens Folkhögskola Biskops-Arnö (Nordic Photography School). [7]
Clarén was born in 1972 in Valje, Sweden and grew up in Lund, Scania. [1] [8]
She studied photojournalism from 1994 to 1996 at Nordens Folkhögskola Biskops-Arnö , Sweden. [1] [9]
Clarén worked as a photographer from 1997, including as a press photographer for Aftonbladet and Icakuriren , and making work for magazines and books. [1] She now leads the Nordens Folkhögskola Biskops-Arnö, where she has been a head teacher since 2006. [1] [7]
Holding (2006) is a visual diary created over four months that "portrays the people and places in Clarén's immediate surroundings". [1] It is included in Parr and Badger's The Photobook: A History, Volume III, [10] where it is described as containing "portraits, interiors, still lifes and landscapes — that together seem to make up a mysterious narrative. The style is diffuse and the images high key, washed-out in colour and frequently blue-tinged, which suggests they have only one foot in reality, and that the narrative is raking through old memories, or is a dream." [10]
With Close to Home (2013) Clarén "documented herself as pregnant, her children, and the people and surroundings close to her home." [11]
When Everything Changed (2018) was made from the point her third child was diagnosed with autism; "we then follow the family and glimpse the different ways they deal with the situation", from 2013 to 2017. [12]
Clarén's work is held in the following public collection: