Kanum Hovland shares the creative madness behind their modeling method and it might surprise you.
Creating a proper magazine cover is hard work, and it’s especially hard work to capture an archetypal winter moment when the print deadline is way before the first snowfall. That’s why The List team had to get a bit creative to simulate the illusion of winter.
Jéleena Rai, The List’s photography editor, and Kanum Hovland, this issue’s model, ventured out to the seaside in Trondheim to capture surreal winter stillness during autumn. But that wasn’t the only surreal thing about the photo shoot.
“I imagined myself as this female goddess in space,” says Kanum.
While they delivered a powerful presence on the latest cover, Kanum doesn’t only spend time in front of the camera. They're a photographer themselves and currently studying at Fotofagskolen. And they have a secret weapon underpinning their artistic expression in both realms — the art of character creation and method acting. Being into theatre and acting from a young age has helped Kanum learn of these methods and see that they can be used in other artistic domains.
Kanum tells us of this powerful character — a meld of a space goddess and an astronaut on new frontiers — that they devised to feel confident and to channel the energy they wished to embody for the shoot.
“As a kid, I was super shy and entering roles that embody confidence helped me to feel comfortable in situations I otherwise wouldn’t,” Kanum explains. “So during the shoot I just asked myself, how would I act if I was super confident? What if I was the first woman astronaut in space?”
Bringing this intentional madness allowed Kanum to feel the cold and calm confidence they believed would suit the cover of a winter magazine. They wanted to make us feel the impending winter when we saw the cover — but in a playful and fantastical way.
The art of character creation gave them the ability to create the feeling of calm floating, like the first snows of winter, which did more than just simulate an aesthetic, it also helped them enjoy the experience as a model.
“Towards the end of the shoot, I truly felt like I was floating and drifting through space, letting go of the earthly me. I felt like I was achieving the vision I wanted to create for the shoot."
It can be scary to put ourselves out there. Being creative is a vulnerable pursuit. But being in the spotlight does not just have to be for the bold and extroverted.
If you’d like to take in this issue’s cover along with a whole host of great articles, you can find copies all over Trondheim, whether it’s in restaurants, cafés, or some of our key distribution points. You can also enjoy a digital version right here.