Camilla Hällgren’s Tiny Figures Highlight Big Social Issues

A Sweden-based female artist is creating miniature figures in the hopes of making a sizable difference. According to Mashable, Camilla Hällgren's Little Sweden Art is a series she started three years ago that uses close-up photography to highlight "big issues on a small scale." Some of these issues: "identity," "social roles," and "power relations." Hällgren — who works as a researcher and professor at Sweden's Umeå University — refers to her photos as "Art Blended Research." This essentially means she seeks to combine art and research to deepen our understanding of the human condition. "I work with the overarching question: What does being a human mean?" she said. "I suggest that one of the things it can mean, from an existential perspective, is being very small in a very big world."

Though Hällgren's work is small, it is incredibly detailed. With each glance, you may pick up on something new, which is just what the artist wanted. The photo above features a small boat called "Hope" that sits within large wooden hands, and is called "May the force be with you," a piece Hällgren says was inspired by the ongoing refugee crisis. It depicts the "vulnerability in having no other choice but to put your hope in other people's hands, and the responsibility that follows." The issues she covers are broad and the titles of the images rarely give anything away, so each photo will mean different things to different people. It's something the artist has learned to appreciate, putting trust into what her images can say all on their own. "I have learned that art can be a powerful way to go if you are looking for emotional dimensions, experiential knowledge," Hällgren told Mashable. "Or...expressing alternative world views and disrupting stereotypes."