WIP: 12 – The Hanged Man
The traditional imagery of The Hanged Man has never made much sense to me. The card is commonly understood to represent a pause or suspension in life, a shift in perspective, and the voluntary surrender of ego or comfort in pursuit of deeper insight. It encourages restraint and reflection—choosing to see a situation from a new angle rather than acting immediately.
And yet, the image is of a person strung up by one foot.
That scenario reads as coercive, not voluntary. I can’t think of a convincing historical or mythological context in which hanging someone by the foot would signify insight or wisdom. It is a form of torture, and suffering is not the core message of this card. Perhaps it was conceived as a visual alternative to hanging by the neck, which would imply death—an interpretation even further removed from the card’s meaning.
For my version, I wanted to return to the essence of The Hanged Man by making the suspension intentional, controlled, and non-violent. This card speaks to an inward choice: the decision to stop, to invert one’s point of view, and to relinquish momentum in order to understand something more deeply. It is not about being subjected to circumstances, but about choosing stillness. I wanted to return a sense of agency to the card.
The image that emerged for me was that of an aerialist. An aerialist hangs upside down not in distress, but with strength, grace, balance, and purpose. The inversion is deliberate. The body is suspended, but the will remains fully engaged. This felt like a far more faithful expression of the card’s meaning—and one that honors its quiet power rather than obscuring it.
One of the challenges in designing this card was making it immediately clear that the figure is an aerialist, so that the straps he uses to position himself in space feel natural and intentional rather than ambiguous or punitive. The suspension needed to read as a chosen state, not a predicament.
Clothing played a crucial role in solving this. The costume had to make sense within a performative context, and fortunately these requirements worked in tandem. By dressing the figure in tights and leaving his chest bare, the visual language of performance became instantly recognizable. The attire signals strength, discipline, and control, reinforcing that this is an act of intention and skill—not restraint.
The background for this card posed its own challenge. I needed an environment where suspension made physical sense—something that implied height and depth—without suggesting danger or the threat of a fall. The figure is not meant to be precarious or imperiled. Fear would undermine the card’s meaning.
I ultimately chose a photograph I took at the annual winter light show at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. The lights lend the scene an otherworldly quality, and while depth is clearly implied, the ground itself is never revealed. This ambiguity allows the figure to remain suspended in a psychological rather than a literal sense.
The lighting also carries symbolic weight. The illumination around his head differs subtly from that around his feet, echoing the central idea of the card: inversion, altered perspective, and the quiet transformation that comes from seeing the world upside down.
