Dear Friends of Art,
It’s been a while since my last newsletter. After January, when everyone hurried to summarize the past year, I took a step back, resisted pressure, and reflected before sharing updates. I return with important news, new projects, and a look back on a year of inspiration, challenges, and encounters.
Being an artist today isn’t easy, especially with funding cuts that threaten our work. Art is labor, and from that labor, one should be able to live. Often, our work is dismissed as a hobby, forced into commercial forms that strip it of deeper meaning, or used for propaganda.
In art we trust!
Despite these challenges, we won’t be silenced. Art is the sister of freedom—it exposes the naked emperor. As Bukowski said: We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. Art lets us thrive, not just survive, and helps us reclaim our humanity that systems try to erase. We won’t give up!
I also hope for increased respect and understanding of our efforts. |
|
| | New Collaboration – Fox Editions Berlin
I’m delighted to announce my collaboration with Fox Editions Berlin. Two of my new editions are now available:
👉 Lusciousness (2019/2025)
👉 Wandering Soul (2019/2025)
Each is in a limited edition of 30 + 2 AP, signed, numbered, and dated on the back. Size: 50 × 62 cm, material: C-print, unframed.
This edition is part of my internationally acclaimed project, Alltagsafantiasie (Everyday Fantasy), celebrating female sensuality and the joyful pursuit of self-determination. The project was also accompanied by a multi-award-winning publication in 2023.
I spend a lot of time with the people I photograph. This closeness yields remarkable images that capture the uncensored beauty of everyday moments.
Fox Editions Berlin is led by Isabelle Meiffert and Sarah Theilacker. Isabelle, a Berlin native, has over 15 years of experience as an independent curator. Sarah Theilacker, from Switzerland, has a background in business and over 15 years in the cultural sector. They have a longstanding friendship and collaboration. Launched in 2025, Fox Editions Berlin is their latest joint venture, felt as both natural and joyful. |
|
| |
| |
The biggest news: Alltagsfantasie continues to evolve!
Circulation(s)! In March, it will be presented as an immersive photo installation at the Circulation(s) Festival, organized by the collective Fetart and held at Centquatre-Paris, France. More details soon!
In 2025, the book itself was exhibited in the Mine Eyes Bees Deceive exhibition at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art and in the PrzeglądAnie (się) exhibition at Laboratorium Sztuki during Kalisz Biennale of Art.
From March to July 2025, selected photographs from Alltagsfantasie were featured in the exhibition NOT YOUR CHOICE! at A.K.T. in Pforzheim, Germany. Focusing on how societal norms and restrictive policies continue to instrumentalize the female body, I incorporated works from Alltagsfantasie into a site-specific installation, maintaining the project’s central question about what it means to be a woman.
Alltagsfantasie was also presented at the International Photography and Media Art Festival (IPMA) in Kaunas, Lithuania, in October 2025. |
|
| |
| |
Internationale Photoszene Köln
In May 2025, Alltagsfantasie debuted as a solo exhibition at the Internationale Photoszene Köln as part of the Open Call “Feelings and Photography,” presented at Gemeinde Köln, Germany. This was a particularly significant moment, as the book I had been developing from 2010 to 2023 had finally transformed into an immersive spatial installation. It resisted the neutrality of the white cube, unfolding as a layered environment of photography, collage, drawing, archive, and ritual.
At the opening, my daughter, Lena Hulpowska Szulc, and I performed simple, intimate gestures—such as adorning the walls with golden stars—that transformed the space into a shared sanctuary of care and imagination. By this act, the project became an intergenerational dialogue of conviviality, reimagining lineage through cocreation. |
|
| |
| |
Beyond the exhibition at Internationale Photoszene Köln, I engaged in participating in the public festival discussion F_CK Off! How to – Take a Seat, moderated by Katharina Klapdor Ben Salem, together with artists Brigitte Dunkel and Lucie Schulze, and preparing a community meal for LunchCube at Ebertplatz. This initiative aimed to engage not only festival attendees but also passersby who might not enter galleries, thereby highlighting art in public spaces. I am always deeply moved when we gather — sharing food, art, and dialogue. |
|
| |
| |
Without colors, we cannot live!
My artistic practice is interdisciplinary: alongside visual art, I create participatory projects that connect people, spaces, and stories. These works evolve and adapt to each audience and context, allowing creativity, memory, and collective expression to flourish.
In September 2025, I co-created and led the creative component of the Urban Practice Symposium: Opportunities for Collective Urban Design in Berlin. Acting as a mediator and “imagination lobbyist,” I incorporated, often underappreciated, tools of creativity and offered them to invited cultural actors: artists, cultural workers, community members, and municipality representatives, who, alongside the pragmatic exchange, saw the effects of these tools and how they enable thinking out of the box, and connections across sectors. |
|
| |
| |
Being Different Together
In October 2025, I was invited to the Art and Cooperation in Gropiusstadt Symposium, organized by the Bauhaus Archive and Kunstwerkstadt Berlin at Gemeinschaftshaus Gropiusstadt. As an invited artist, I presented my participatory project Gemeinsam Andres Sein (Being Different Together), conducted in cooperation with Berlin Mondiale at the event and the subsequent group exhibition, explored how art and collaboration shape neighborhoods. Artists, cultural workers, and community members exchanged ideas, initiated collaborations, and reflected on cultural work. My contribution included Analog Instax photos from the project, serving as tangible extensions of participants’ intentions, gestures, and memories.
👉 See the brochure here |
|
| |
| |
The participatory photo project Gemeinsam Andres Sein focuses on shared stories of community, authorship, and daily life, and continues to circulate and adapt, responding to diverse audiences and contexts. Open to all ages and backgrounds, I often co-lead with my daughter, Lena Hulpowska Szulc. These sessions emphasize imagination and collective joy, demonstrating that culture is a human right, not a luxury.
In July 2025 - Workshop for Not Your Choice! Finissage, A.K.T., Pforzheim, DE; in November 2025 workshop for DiaDeWutzky, Neighborhood Festival, Wutzkyallee Youth Center, Berlin, DE (); and in December, 2025, Photobox for Move the Streets 447, Gangway Neukölln / Wutzkyallee Youth Center, Berlin, DE |
|
| |
| |
Mondiale Calendar – Form as Philosophy
The final project I want to tell you about is a calendar for Berlin Mondiale. This commissioned assignment was entrusted to me as an artist and mediator. This gave me the freedom to approach it fully artistically, balancing practical function with my own artistic methodology.
I returned to linocut techniques, long overdue, creating illustrations that convey a message while also exploiting the medium to make them visually engaging, reminding us how rich that simple play of 2 colors can be (black and white are colors too ;) At the same time, I aimed to create something sublime and universal so that it would be available to all. |
|
| |
| |
Making the calendar became, for me, a manifesto of DIY, handwork, creative self-sufficiency, and sustainable creation — print-on-demand, minimal resources, and a conscious use of technique. The illustrations celebrate humanism, joy of unity in diversity, and Berlin’s multicultural life, further underscored by the inclusion of the dates of festive days from the many cultures present in Berlin. This project also pays tribute to my professor Andrzej Batrczak, who passed away in early 2025. His spirit and teachings subtly influence the work. Under his guidance, I completed my master’s thesis in 2004 and, as part of my diploma, defended a minor in woodcut techniques and art books. Part of that was included in Alltagsfantasie, sewn as a small booklet within the book. It will now reappear in a new form at my upcoming exhibition at Circulation(s) - stay tuned!
👉 HERE you can download and print it. |
|
| |
| |
As you can see, although I work on a wide range of projects, they are all connected, forming my own universe — to which I warmly invite you. At the same time, I want to offer you my belated wishes for this year. My true resolution this year is to stop preaching and start laughing, including at ourselves. To joke more and be more avant-garde again. Because maybe we only move forward when we allow ourselves to wander a bit more freely — lighter, more playful — even in these heavy, man-made circumstances. With deep compassion, I would simply like to offer a small glimmer of hope ❤️
With fantasy and courage,
Joanna Szproch
Stay tuned for more updates on Instagram and Substack! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | | | |
|
|
|
|
