“As It Were, Suspended in Midair” Explores the Visuals of a Lineage

Boston-based artist Hannah Altman uses the photographic medium to investigate ideas of lineage, ritual, and storytelling. She is known for her use of natural light and the body, often employing gestures and ritual objects to explore her ancestry and Jewish identity. Her solo show “As It Were, Suspended in Midair” fills Brandeis University’s Kniznick Gallery with evocative color photographs—enigmatic staged portraits and symbolic still lifes that utilize high contrast, glowing highlights, and deep shadows. The exhibition is laid out with image groupings of two or three photographs on the smaller walls and a largen even-image spread flanked by singular portraits on the largest wall. The relationships of images and gallery sightlines are well considered, and the intentional building of visual and conceptual linkages is clear. Walls painted in deep, rich reds and purples allow a sense of depth in our viewing as well as turn our focus to the juxtapositions that mostly serve the work well.

The first pairing of photographs is an image of a cracked egg, Giving (2024), and the portrait Yad (You) (2023). Their palettes and the light coming from the left of the composition, the same direction as the light from the gallery’s nearby window, formally connects them. There is tension in the subjects of both photographs. One shows a broken form, the egg, that is ripe with metaphors of birth, femininity, pregnancy, and, because it is fractured, death. The other is a portrait of an elder woman looking calmly upward, with dappled window light behind her. A wooden instrument held by an unseen hand ends in a small, curved fist, its pointer finger extended straight to prick the underside of the woman’s chin. There is the potential of extreme pain being exhibited, but it is at the cusp, not the apex—the fragility and thinness of her skin is evident as the light rakes across it, textures showcasing all the aspects of time that appear on skin as the result of a lived life. Yet this tension is manageable, not frightening, as after all it is just a small rod of wood. This “hand” is a yad, a Jewish ritual pointer, or stylus, used to follow the text while reading the Torah—a tool that allows the Torah to unfold for the reader while simultaneously protecting the parchment from the oils of their skin. It seems almost an act of rebellion to put the very thing that is made to protect a sacred object from our human flaws to the skin, that which poses danger to the sacred.

As a non-Jewish individual, I do not have the histories or stories behind the ritualistic and spiritual objects utilized in some of Altman’s photographs. Thankfully Altman makes sure to not leave one out of the experience. Besides the wall text when you first walk in, there is no text, no titles or information. This allows the viewer to see what they want to see, to see what their subjective search and understanding of identity reveals. This is a generosity of Altman’s project.

The first portrait on the long wall, Armful (2024), shows a woman holding seven pomegranates against her bare skin—they are visually balanced much like a Dutch still life, yet hug and move around her clavicle and shoulder like an avant-garde piece of fashion. The subject gazes slightly out of frame with a calm and almost disinterested expression. Pomegranates share a heavy history of symbolism across many cultures and times. In Judaism it is considered to be the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, which aligns with its cross-cultural associations to womanhood and fertility. But there is always friction in the tale of the Garden of Eden, for Eve is the one who chose knowledge, who took the forbidden fruit to know the world. Yet ever since that moment, women have been restricted from and denied their right to that very knowledge they chose. Armful has a formal tension for the careful viewer. The sheen of light moves across the skin of the woman in the same way it does across the skin of the pomegranate. The directional aspect of the light brings all the imperfections of both the woman and the fruit in full focus—this is not an idealized Eve or Lilith and these are not flawless fruits. Strength and vulnerability are exhibited through their exterior layers.

The long wall has many interesting images. The strongest, Telling You (2021), appears on the cover of Altman’s new book We Will Return to You, published by Saint Lucy Books. It is a self-portrait where the artist catches the sunlight in her mouth and with it captures a seemingly impossible starburst. This starburst form is also present in Giving. Again, the eyes look to the left of the frame, with directional window light raking the skin. This image feels much more like a moment of chance, a discovery on the contact sheet, but when you look closer you see that inside her mouth is a child’s mouth, referencing the milk teeth that we shed as we grow but also ancestry and progeny, those that come before and after us. The word for tooth in Hebrew is “shein” but translates much more complexly—we are able to thrive through our teeth, as they allow us to nourish ourselves, and in various texts they symbolize the ability to endure life’s challenges. This self-portrait (which is not named as such) has ambiguity, much like Yad. Are we disturbed by this hidden extra set of teeth, or does it speak to a new life coming out of our sufferance?

The most powerful juxtaposition are three images, all self-portraits, against the far wall. These photos tell a narrative of a woman working to discover her own identity regardless of culture or politics. She is intimate with the light and camera, almost like they are her lovers, creating images that are much more visceral than the other photographs in the gallery. We also see Altman work through her influences and photography history. The left image stands out for its visual abstraction and use of exposure to challenge our visual perception. Showing the shadow of a hand illuminated in a circle of light on the base of a tree, it stylistically connects to modernist photography. The center image, the largest of the three, is a close portrait—the viewer would have to be sitting on the edge of the bed, their body touching Altman’s, in order to achieve the vantage point. Hair spread across the bedding reminds one of Sally Mann’s The Two Virginias, speaking to the vulnerability of time on our bodies. The light illuminates the contours of the face while the eyes are in shadow and the hair obscures the forehead. The intimate nature of the bed linens is palpable in the sharp focus of the image. In the right image, the subject’s body faces away from us in an awkward, almost creeping position à la Francesca Woodman. The figure moves toward a closed door but is too close to easily open it, the left arm reaching back, the hand open toward the viewer yet slightly claw-like in its rigid position and illuminated fingernails. Like many of Woodman’s photographs, the image evokes ambiguous feelings toward this female body. As a grouping, these three images seem less constructed and labored over, more intuitive—this is when the artist is at her best.

As you turn back to the main gallery, you are confronted with Reminders (2023), an affecting image of a deeply bruised pregnant belly, shades of black, purple, and yellow blooming next to a belly button that has been deformed by the taut stretch of the skin. The image speaks to all that a female body endures to survive this existence, to preserve ancestry, tradition, literal life. Altman’s work asks us about our own strengths and to ponder what we ourselves endure for a sense of identity, self, and culture. She leaves the viewer asking questions and looking forward to more.

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“As It Were, Suspended in Midair” is on view at Kniznick Gallery through June 12, 2025.

Altman’s new monograph, We Will Return to You (2025), is published by Saint Lucy Books.