Sanna Sjöswärd

Sanna Sjöswärd (b. 1973) was born in Teheran, Iran, and raised in Sweden. She is a photographer, author, and visual storyteller focusing on identity, memory, and human dignity. 

Sjöswärd studied documentary photography at Hola Folkhögskola and Nordens Fotoskola. She has worked as a freelance photographer for several of Sweden’s largest newspapers while also developing long-term personal projects focused on individual and collective experiences.

She has published several books, including Roots (2006); My Mother is a Persian Princess, (2009) about reconnecting with her biological family in Iran; Eldsjälar (Fire Souls, 2011), portraying people who turn hardship into constructive change; and The Hatred of Jews (2021), documenting antisemitism in Sweden. She also spent two periods living in Tehran. During the first, she worked on her book My Mother Is a Persian Princess in 2007; during the second, she developed the long-term project Two Faces in 2013, documenting the lives of young women.

Sjöswärd’s work has been exhibited across Sweden, including at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg and at Arbetets Museum in Norrköping. Her project Roots was exhibited in New York in 2007 at James Nachtwey’s studio as part of a group exhibition, and at solo exhibitions at Gallery Ibis in Finland and across Sweden. In 2019, her project Fading Stories, about Holocaust survivors, premiered at Fotografiska in Stockholm. Her work is also represented in the National Portrait Collection at Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.

She received second prize in the Portrait category at Årets Bild Sverige 2025.


World Press Photo Involvement:
2026 World Press Photo Contest winner

Sanna Sjöswärd on Social Media:
Instagram: @ginosarfatti