Alltagsfantasie

2010-2023

A publication that is itself a work of art: the art photo book Alltagsfantasie by JOANNA SZPROCH – available in the André Frère Éditions' shop (link: https://www.andrefrereditions.com/en/books/no-category/alltags-fantasie/) – is an ode to sexual autonomy and celebrates female sensuality. Alltagsfantasie is a courageous illustrated photo-text performance - a multilayered self-portrait - in which the artist invites us to reconsider notions of identity, gender roles, and self-portrayal. It sharpens our view of the individual and societal search for self-empowerment and opens up space for a critical examination of existing power structures and norms.

“I penetrate with curiosity my infinite Alltagsfantasie that resonates with my true self. This allows me to live authentically despite illusionary appearances. Life is a miraculous mystery.“

In a lengthy creative process that started in 2010 and lasted until 2021, JOANNA SZPROCH created more than just a remarkable excerpt from her biography. PATRYCJA, a young model, takes on the role of the artist's alter ego. Temporal levels condense into an ultra-personal staging of everyday fantasy moments, a collage of past and present, fragments of dreams and memories. The book that emerged from this complex process refers both to one's own self and to that which arises in the context of social and cultural imprints. It is precisely in these in-between worlds of 'female' and 'male gaze', the boundaries between the self and the outside, that Szproch explores her Alltagsfantasie. Here she defies draconian societal norms and indulges her needs and desires without compromise.

“Everything (Polish) women do is subject to constant public scrutiny. We are denied the right to pleasure and joy. This I intuitively refuse, but also I repel a female martyrdom that weakens me.”

In 2012 JOANNA SZPROCH left Poland. In Berlin she wanted to escape the misogynist, conservative corset of her strictly Catholic homeland, to be free. But six years after the social outcry of #metoo, anti-feminists are still claiming that rape is not a crime against women, but against property. Szproch fights the dysfunctional system of patriarchy – a fight that still has to be fought in society and in everyday life in order to bring about change.

“Some people say I have my head in the clouds. For me, it’s all true. Live your fantasy and do not let illusions trick you.”

Lena

coming soon

I have been photographing my daughter since she was born and our remarkable relationship. I observe her transformation into a woman and her search for her own identity, separating herself from me as an independent individual with her own agency. We play at taking pictures and she, more than once witnessing my photo shoots, plays the role of a model and impersonates characters she creates herself. In the process, we balance on the verge of making testimony and creation.

Jason Honea

coming soon

Jason Honea hails from Northern California's Santa Clara Valley and calls Berlin, San Francisco, San Jose, and Santa Cruz home. He's a rocker, performer, singer, sayer, painter, drawer, and prayer. In an attempt to find out what works about music he straddles history and the lives of the saints to invoke atmosphere, redemption, and quest in an ever evolving exercise in fun and beauty.

I photograph Jason as my friend and a Californian punk-rocker. We shared a flat and now we are best buddies.

Bodywholeness

2019

The title BODYWHOLENESS was created by combining the words body and whole, in a synthetic way it refers to the issues of the project. It is an attempt to think of man as a holistic being, in which carnality is inseparably intertwined with the soul and mind. Such an attitude is important, especially today, when busy with everyday life, overwhelmed by media messages, bombarded by visual stimuli, we forget about the body, we think only about its external surface – its appearance. We cease to be in the body, to be the body, to be the BODYWHOLENESS. Is it possible to take at least a small step to be closer to the body, as it used to be?

bibgul

2016-2018

The photo project portraying Bibgul who calls herself an Experimental Amateur Exhibitionist/ Filmmaker/ Famous Dancer / Percussionist /Sexy
Hat / Fashion Designer. Her child-like yet provocative charisma inspired both artists to have together several shootings over a period of 2 years. To disobey the fashion industry’s snobiety and fakeness, they developed a rough and controversial DIY working style and Szproch with a sense of irony decided to finish a project in the form of a glamorous magazine mock-up in an edition of 10 copies.

Berlin Wunderland

2017

Berlin, the mecca of art, happens to become my home, where I meet colorful creative personalities. They have liberated themselves from the traditional canon and indulge in the experimentation of creation with childlike enthusiasm. In the spirit of the photography series resulting from our encounters, I am developing its continuation for publication at the special request of the Art Issue of 4SEE Magazine.

house of doll

2017

SOPHIE SONI is a multidisciplinary artist and founder of HOUSE OF DOLL. Her mixed media collages range from wearable art pieces to site-specific junk installations and sculptures. Scouring abandoned spaces and exploring the obsessive nature of material object attachment and collection, all resources used in her work are reclaimed rubbish without exception.

An editorial and a live shooting performance collaboration with House of Doll at Neurotitan, January 2017, Berlin, DE
The intermedial action between a performer Bibgul and a photographer Joanna Szproch is the result of a meeting between the medium of instant photography with the art of performance. Photographer captures the performer’s exhibitionism balancing somewhere between girly-infantile and slutty-vulgar.
Performance is a part of Rubbish Fairy’s installation House of Doll.

hanne lippard

2016

Hanne Lippard, born in 1984 in Milton Keynes, GB, lives and works in Berlin. Lippard’s practice explores the voice as a medium. Her education in graphic design informs how language can be visually powerful; her texts are visual, rhythmic, and performative rather than purely informative, and her work is conveyed through a variety of disciplines, which include short films, sound pieces, installations, and performance.

liina nillson

2016

Liina Nilsson is a Swedish artist based in Berlin and travels a lot, working in the mediums of painting, video, and writing. She is also an illustrator, editor, and director in the same mediums, an organizer, multiple designer, sometime singer, oft a builder, always a worker. She also runs a video art label called "Shocking Film", is one part of a duo "Nemesis" and a collective Pizza Suicide.

ballady i romanse for the lure film

2016

Ballady i Romanse is the band of two sisters Zuzanna and Barbara Wrońska who wrote the music and lyrics to the movie The Lure (Polish: Córki dancingu – "Daughters of Dancing"). This is a 2015 Polish horror musical film directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska. The story is a reworking of the 1837 fairy tale "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen, with inspiration from sisters' experiences. After a Polish premiere, the film screened at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and Fantasia Film Festival, to mixed reviews.

whitelies magazine

2016

An editorial for Whitelies Magazine - A collaboration with a makeup artist Jana Kalgajeva

lady gaby

2014

LADY GABY is a Berlin-based Australian spoken word and performance artist, creative writing, and projects coordinator as well as an event promoter, who has been involved in the international spoken word scene since the 90s. the organiser of Fuel, From the MOUTH OF DAMES, The Poetic Groove, lady gaby devotes energy in bringing poetry into the spotlight to make it 'COOL AND GROOVEY' to be performed at dance clubs, performance venues, and cultural festivals. She loves poets whose work is provocative, on the edge, and relevant to everyone around.

phil and monica

2014

Blending elements of lounge, surf, Latin, jazz, and wine music, Phil and Monica, featuring Leo 'Tormented Chilli Burger’, Mario ‘Crippled Pinhata’, ‘Fat Robocop’ and Matthew 'Steven Seagull', combines face-melting ukelele kitchen rock chopped and sauteed with heart-wrenching horns and mozzarella melting over thoughtful lyrics. A sonic adventure to a faraway South Pacific island.

prima facie

tarren johnson

2014

Tarren Johnson (b. 1990) is an American choreographer and artist based in Berlin.
She works with performance, video, sculpture, and writing.

artistic characters

2008-2014

a compilation of portraits of creative personalities based in Warsaw, NY, and Berlin, some of them I photographed for ID Poland in 2014 which featured Polish creatives living and working in Berlin