Your House is on Fire
Ladybird, ladybird fly away home
Your house is on fire and your children will burn
Your House is on Fire is a collection of photographs that record fire interventions to
vintage Ladybird books. The pages are strategically lit or immersed into the fire so that
the flames momentarily illuminate, enliven or disrupt aspects of the illustrations,
animating new readings of the familiar children’s stories.
The element of fire is employed as a creative force in re-visioning female protagonists as
portrayed in classic fairy tales. The photographs capture the character or scene
transformed by smoke, smoldering or engulfed in flames, and vestiges of the pages are
rendered among the ashes.
Fire—a symbol of hearth and home, destruction, trial, purging and purification—opens up
the narratives to consider personal and cultural mythologies that bear relationship to
dreams, desires and memory.
Sara Hannant is best known for her photographs exploring magical belief, seasonal customs, and folklore. Her practice investigates documentary photography and she has a dynamic approach to image-making and visual storytelling. She uses analogue, digital and alternative processes to produce work for exhibitions and publications.
Awards 2021 Pollux Awards, Still Life Series, Second Place, and Culture and Daily Life, Honourable Mention
2021 Julia Margaret Cameron Award, Alternative Processes and Still life Series, Honourable Mention
2020 Pollux Awards, Alternative Processes Series, Winner
2020 International Photo Awards (Lucie), Honorable Mention
2020 Siena Creative Photo Awards 2020, Shortlist
2020 Julia Margaret Cameron Award, Still Life Series, and Documentary and Reportage Series, Honorable Mention
2019 The Royal Photographic Society Hundred Heroines: Nominated
2019 Julia Margaret Cameron Award, Still Life and Abstraction Series, Honorable Mention
2019 Heritage Fund Photography Project Grant, Lunation, Moon Festival 2019
2019 British Photography Awards, Documentary Photography, Shortlist
2019 Julia Margaret Cameron Award, People, and Still Life Series, Honorable Mention
2019 British Life Photography Awards 2018, Urban Life, Documentary Series, and Photojournalism, Shortlist
2018 Pollux Awards, Open Theme Series, Honorable Mention
2018 Julia Margaret Cameron Award, Still Life Series, Honorable Mention
2017 The Katharine Briggs Folklore Award, Book Shortlist
2017 International Photo Awards (Lucie), Honorable Mention
2017 Moscow International Foto Awards, Book – Documentary, Honorable Mention
2016 PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris, Honorable Mention
2015 Moscow International Foto Awards, Honorable Mention
2015 Lens Culture Earth Award, Selected
2013 International Photo Awards, Photography Book of the Year, Honorable Mention
2012 Katharine Briggs Folklore Award, Book Runner-up
