Book Review: We Will Return To You by Hannah Altman

blog

Book Review: We Will Return To You by Hannah Altman

May 24th, 2025 by Cary Benbow

One Hollow to Another © Hannah Altman / Saint Lucy Books

Hannah Altman stands out in the crowded field of contemporary photobooks, creating work that is both uniquely resonant and profoundly personal. Her latest offering, We Will Return To You, published by Saint Lucy Books, is a carefully crafted visual journey, a tender yet profound exploration of heritage, memory, and the enduring power of storytelling. Altman masterfully transforms ancestral narratives into a contemporary visual language that echoes the past and yet feels refreshingly new.

The title itself, drawn from the hadran—a declaration recited upon completing a section of the Talmud—serves as a poignant gateway into Altman’s world. It speaks not only of a commitment to revisit sacred texts, but also of a cyclical nature of time, a return to origins, and a forward-looking promise. This sense of cyclicality, as Altman herself notes, is a cornerstone of Jewish mythology, where “a deep sense of memory… transcends one person’s experiences and becomes living historical content.” It is this very concept that she so beautifully translates through her images, creating work that bears the weight of the past, yet illuminates the path to the future.

Altman’s photographs, a collection of 71 evocative color images, are steeped in the rich tapestry of Jewish folklore and ritual. From the enigmatic still lifes—a pile of salt, an axe suspended between trees, a mirror submerged in water—to the intimate portraits of herself and her community, each image is charged with a symbolic weight that transcends its immediate form. These are not merely representations, but rather visual incantations, reinterpreting objects and traditions from Judaica and placing them within contemporary settings. The familiar becomes unfamiliar, the everyday infused with a magical aura. It’s a delicate dance between recognition and revelation, inviting the viewer to look beyond the surface and delve into the layers of meaning that lie beneath.

One cannot discuss We Will Return To You without acknowledging Altman’s exquisite use of natural light. Light, in her creative process is an active participant, almost a character unto itself. It carves her subjects out of shadow, lending an immediacy and tangible quality to each scene. The glow of sunlight across skin and objects creates a compelling tension—a sense of warmth that is simultaneously tinged with unease, coloring her images with a haunting, ethereal beauty. Altman’s image in the book of a hand inside a clear plastic bag that is full of water comes to mind. We don’t know whose hand it is, but the isolated and slightly magnified hand and bag are bathed in sunlight, a sublime curiosity to behold. This interplay of light and shadow, warmth and mystery, echoes the complexities of Jewish history itself – a narrative woven with threads of both joy and sorrow, resilience and displacement.

Beyond the visual, We Will Return To You incorporates text as a vital element, mirroring the integral role of both performed and written narratives in Jewish storytelling traditions. The inclusion of a short story nestled between the photographs is a deliberate and brilliant choice, enriching the visual experience and deepening the reader’s engagement with the themes. This interplay between image and text creates a dialogue, allowing the photographs to breathe and the stories to resonate on multiple levels. It speaks to a heritage where the written word and oral tradition are inextricably linked, each informing and elevating the other.

Altman’s approach to exploring her heritage is not one of rigid adherence to historical documentation, but rather a dynamic, living reinterpretation. She bridges the gap between past and present, crafting a visual narrative that expands and carries forward cultural memory. This is particularly evident in her portraits, which are multi-faceted and almost tactile, often set against dense, visually complex or busy backdrops of homes, forests, and wild overgrown fields. These settings emphasize the deep connection to land and dwelling, a concept central to Jewish identity, yet they are infused with a contemporary sensibility that avoids cliché. The faces of her subjects, whether self-portraits or members of her extended community, reflect a timelessness, a sense of belonging to a lineage that stretches across generations and lands.

As curator Olivia Baldwin notes, Altman’s strengths show in her ability to layer symbols and allusions, building a world that “recasts and transforms Jewish ritual and folklore toward the world ahead.” This is not a nostalgic glance in the rearview mirror of history, but rather a bold forward-looking exploration. By reinterpreting and reimagining these traditions, Altman offers a fresh perspective on narratives that have sustained a people through turbulent centuries. Her photographs become a testament to survival, a visual declaration that “we will not forget you, and you will not forget us—not in this world and not in the next world.”

In We Will Return To You, Hannah Altman has created more than a photobook; she has crafted a profound meditation on identity, memory, and the enduring power of cultural narrative. It is a work that invites contemplation, challenges perception, and ultimately, offers a hopeful vision of a future that is inextricably linked to the wisdom and resilience of the past. For those seeking a photographic journey that transcends the ephemeral and delves into the timeless, Altman’s work is an indispensable and deeply moving experience.

Armful © Hannah Altman / Saint Lucy Books

Braid Tug © Hannah Altman / Saint Lucy Books

Embody © Hannah Altman / Saint Lucy Books

Foundation © Hannah Altman / Saint Lucy Books

Hiding (Flying) © Hannah Altman / Saint Lucy Books

Molting © Hannah Altman / Saint Lucy Books

My Weight in Salt © Hannah Altman / Saint Lucy Books

We Will Return To You
Texts and Photographs: Hannah Altman
Design Direction: Luminosity Lab, Caleb Cain Marcus
Published by Saint Lucy Books (March 2025)
Hardcover
144 Pages, 11 x 8 Inches
(Cover Image: Telling You, 2022)

Hannah Altman is a Jewish-American artist from New Jersey and based in Boston, Massachusetts. She holds an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has been exhibited at Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Filter Photo, Technische Sammlungen Dresden, Blue Sky Gallery, Candela Gallery, and the Griffin Museum of Photography, among others.

Her work has appeared in many publications including New York Times, Artforum, Vanity Fair, PHMuseum, Carnegie Museum of Art Storyboard, Lensculture, and British Journal of Photography. She was the inaugural Blanksteen Artist in Residence at the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale in 2022 and an Aperture Portfolio Prize Finalist in 2023. Her first photobook Kavana (2020) was published by Kris Graves Projects and is collected by institutions including the MoMA and Metropolitan Museum of Art libraries.

About Cary Benbow

Photographer, Writer, Publisher of Wobneb Magazine

View all posts by Cary Benbow →

Location: Online Type: Book Review

blog