distinct and visible. Such was the case of Joanna (Asia)

born: 1972, Sopot
lives in Sopot
www.joannazastrozna.com.pl | www.lalala.lu
Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk (with a degree in graphic design and photography in
1997). She works in photography and film. Her painting-like photographs have the atmosphere of surrealist
pictures.
selected individual exhibitions
2006 2005
2003
2002 2001 2000 1999 Zageszczanie, Wizytujaca Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
Zageszczanie, State Gallery of Art, Sopot, Poland
NR3, Photomonth in Cracow, Poland
NR3, FF Gallery, Lodz, Poland
NR3, Mala Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
Buby, Baltic Art Center, Gdansk, Poland
Messenger, Mala Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
A beautiful woman with her hair let down loosely is standing next to a tall dog of aristocratic breed on
a leash. This is how she presented herself at her very first portfolio review in Bratislava, and this is how
others, who saw her works then, remembered her. The works were bright and chaotically apocalyptic.
In a way they clashed with the image of the refined Ondine, in which the dandyism, or even haughtiness,
of blue blood was mixed with sylvan mysteriousness.
Years have passed. Those works, like good wine, had been set aside and after some time they began to be
considered not worse, but rather fresher and more vivid. This is what can happen in the art of photography.
“They should be set aside”, say those who have spent decades with photographs. In the first instant, bare
nerves of a viewer are hit by the syncopated rhythms of the contemporary, the rhythms of the familiarity of
elusive dashes and stitches linking the photograph with its surroundings, with the time of its creation and,
simultaneously, of the viewer’s existence. As time goes by, the place of these works in the period in which
they were created does not become less evident – this phenomenon of “the transient” becomes easier to
express when the photos are related to key events of a given period, even if these events are represented
metaphorically in specific photographs.
With time, the eternal dimension of works created by an artist, who acts as a medium here, becomes more
distinct and visible. Such was the case of Joanna (Asia) Zastróżna.
selected group exhibitions
2007 2006 2004 2002 2000 2001 1999 Remembered Time, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
Polish Photography in XX century, Shoto Museum of Art, Tokyo
Glob-All, Woman Kraft Gallery, Tucson, Arizona, USA
Around Decade – Polish Photography of 90’s, Museum of Art in Lodz, Poland
7th Courant D’Art, Deauville, France
Archipelago, Month of Photography, Herten, Germany
Relations, House of Photography, Poprad, Slovakia
Beginning from her first year of studies, through the diploma project at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk in
1997, and later presentations including her first individual exhibition in Warsaw, portfolio review in Bratislava,
and a group exhibition of young Polish artists in Japan in 1999, Joanna Zastróżna’s works from diploma
project Buba and the second one, Messenger, were perceived as the reflection of current tendencies: playing
with colors, mixing artistic and commercial photography; transience and marginality of the perception of
photography (whether considered in the context of contemporary art or the latest design); the tendency to
mix signs, testifying to the globalization of cultural space and its gradual digitalization. However, the works
from the Messenger project were followed by the Zageszczanie series, and the goal of the latter one was to
develop those motifs of the former project which were not considered dominant upon its appearance. After
that, Zastróżna presented the Morocco series.
08 / 03
02
09
These three projects have created a brand new perspective for encoding the Messenger, and begun to be
perceived as commentaries and ways to ‘decode’ one another. In these three projects – developed one from
another, and, at the same time, ‘arguing’ with each other – a magical perspective revealed itself. It became
obvious that the author was neither expecting understanding from her contemporaries nor looking for a brand
new artistic form. Instead, her aim was to revive the protolanguages and their syntax, whose complexity
makes one hear nothing but muttering. The meaning of the majority of protowords remains unknown to us,
as the development of our civilization does not go along with the protection of cultural values and cultural
(non-technological) experience. And, believe it or not, I am writing all this about the works of Joanna
Zastróżna which are extremely advanced and well-developed in terms of technology. As a matter of fact, the
way to simplify the technological component of the language of photography in the Morocco project, or the
way to reinforce the meanings, lead from gathering valuables and the desire to achieve the abundance of
forms of expression towards a peaceful resignation.
Following her artistic paths, one can say that Joanna has worked within the concepts of the archetypal
zone – her main areas of interest included a woman as the inner self of an artist, the relations between the
masculine and the feminine, and, finally, the quest for the cause and meaning of the existence of ‘I’. The
research on the existence of ‘ego’ in Zastróżna’s last project no longer amounts to the sheer definition of
manhood/womanhood or to the opposition of these two concepts. However, that latest series reveals the
artist’s profound understanding of the mystery of existence: the meaning of a self-defining entity is superior
to the questions of sexual identity. In fact, this meaning is identical for both men and women: the meaning –
on the way, struggling to answer the question about the beginning of the world and its purpose, the meaning
of existence of a grain of sand in the desert similar to the meaning of the bodies and souls of individual
men and women in a society. The discussion on the core questions of existence may be brought down to
the accounts of Paulo Coelho. However, upon considering the traditions of the past century and modernism
which placed the art of photography in the context of modern arts and which turned philosophy into a genre
of intellectual literature, we can also recall the names of Rene Genon, Edward Whitmore who ignored the
European stereotypes of cultures of the East and the South (in relation to Europe, then considered the center
of the world).
asiazastrozna
Why is modernism crucial not only for the understanding of the senses, meanings and interpretations of the
subjects of Zastróżna’s works? She took her photographs at the turn of the centuries and her artistic output
is modernist in its intense experimentalism. It is very easy for Joanna to bring together the technical aspects
of photography and graphics. She works amazingly well as a graphic designer on her negatives, placing
new elements in the print only in the very process of printing, she confidently does the editing during each
individual stage of creating her works. At the same time, for her the process of editing is not only about
bringing separate elements together, but it is also a way of thinking that assumes the parity of the artist and
her material, their dialogue, the chance for the artistic material to regain freedom and the opportunity for this
material to guide the artist.
“The author is guided by her subject”. This phrase is probably familiar to all those who study literature,
where in the mysterious process of creation, a magical transformation occurs, and it is no longer the author
who is in charge of the plot, but the characters that by their nature guide him by dictating the further plot
development. However, what does it mean that the artistic material guides the artist in terms of photography?
Is it not the photographer, or the artist, who is in charge of the plot, its subject and composition? Is it not a
person who times the transformation of the material into a work of art, either when holding the camera or in
the laboratory while developing pictures? The editing process which includes collageing and multiexposition
used by Joanna Zastróżna allows the subject to express itself. The photographer is not only interested
in technical aspects such as the reversibility of a film and the brightness of a color picture, but also the
transparency and the depth of the emulsion coating which allows to present the texture and minute details.
Joanna’s works are transparent palimpsests with which – just like with an x-ray – one can penetrate through
the surface of fabrics, and immerse in a multi-layer image, wallowing in the waves of multiple meanings
and senses, feeling them interact. The optical analogue material becomes Joanna’s co-author, and without
it she is unable to obtain the intended meaning of her photos. If the meaning of her works is so dependent
on touch and feelings, and it is so hard to translate from the language of feelings, experiencing and
perception to the form of a rational verbal stream, then the question arises: to what extent have the depths
of phantasmagorical works of art been planned by the artist? The subject matter gives the works of Zastróżna
the effect of an automatic script and a kind of shamanism, in which the element of randomness plays a major
08 / 05
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role. According to rational thinking, randomness is everything that penetrates it from the outside, interfering
with the logical order of a rational concept. Randomness is a synonym of Providence, God’s interference, and
favorable conditions in relation to individual artists. There could be no other explanation for the luck of some
photographers, their ability to appear in the right time and place and release the shutter right on time, and
for the lack of these circumstances for others? This randomness can be also the explanation for the unique
aptness of colors and the precision of editing in the works of Zastróżna. However, this randomness and selfexpression of the subject matter are both supported by the artist’s profound knowledge of photography, and
the deep feeling of love, which is fully requited by the material.
In the age of logically-constructed manifestos and the coldness of conceptually controlled art (I do not mean
– isms and styles, but the deletion of the author, and the role of the observer accepted by a contemporary
artist), the emotional load and expressiveness present in Zastróżna’s works, together with their extraverbal
message look anachronistic. However, they are extremely alluring and captivating. Upon seeing her pictures,
you cannot tear away from the complexity of interlacing details and forms present in her works. You cannot
take your eyes off the turns of the Moebius strip. You are unable to abandon the pleasure of a shaman dance,
or of the state of hypnosis, ecstasy and trance into which your eyes are brought by the elliptic shapes in her
pictures.
consider the surface of artworks as physical matter, and their eyes and brains will no longer distinguish
between 3-D and 2-D art, which will completely remove the borders between the real and the virtual.
However, the border still does exist, and Zastróżna’s works do exist in the real world as an illusion of an
unimagined depth, not only symbolic, but also visual.
Her photographs embrace the concepts of material tangibility, matter-of-factness, two-dimensionality and the
ability to see through the outer borders of matter, which is impossible to achieve in the material world as we
know it. At the same time, the technique and the subject of her pictures add authenticity, making them the
witnesses of visionary experiments.
Irina Tchmyreva PhD
Moscow Museum of Modern Art
The sense of each individual part of the Zageszczanie project is tragic. They are more about Thanatos than
about Eros and still they do not disgust, but draw one’s attention. There is much mystery in them. Even
though television offers other views on contemporary shamanic rituals and priests, the forms of the subject’s
bodies in Zastróżna’s works stimulate the images one might have of the ancient priests, similar to those
presented in Paleolithic sculptures and reliefs. Coming back to the magic of the materials Joanna uses, the
heavy figures in her photographs are transparent and ethereal, just like in dreams.
The arrival of computer technologies which has taken place over the last decade allows for translating
fantasies and dreams of artists into images with the use of lesser means. However, the digital figures and
constant streams of characters, letters, hieroglyphics are perceived differently than in Zastróżna’s pictures
from the late 90’s. And the reason for that is not in her pictures being analogue prototypes of more recent
digital images. Perhaps years will pass, and new generations of viewers raised on digital art will cease to
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sahara
photopoland
PhotoPoland is a project that aims to promote modern Polish photography abroad. It has been developed
by Adam Mickiewicz Institute and Foundation of Visual Education, the main organizer of Fotofestiwal, in
cooperation with an international group of curators. Its first edition was organized in May 2007. Representatives of various festivals and institutions dealing with photography from Spain, Brazil, USA, Mexico, Russia,
Greece, Israel and Great Britain met during the International Festival of Photography in Lodz. They spent
two days analyzing portfolios and talking to 15 Polish artists. The outcome of these meetings is a series of
exhibitions of 7 of these photographers – Nicolas Grospierre, Przemysław Pokrycki, Konrad Pustoła, Szymon
Rogiński, Asia Zastróżna, and the duo of Weronika Łodzińska and Andrzej Kramarz – presented in galleries and
exhibitions all around the world.
Curators
Naomi Aviv (freelance curator, Israel); Stephanie Brown (Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK); Alejandro
Castellanos (Centro de la Imagen, Mexico); Karla Osorio Netto (Foto Arte Brasilia, Brasil); Lambros Papanikolatos
(freelance curator, Greece); Nissan Perez (Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Israel); Irina Tchmyreva (Museum of
Modern Art in Moscow, Russia); Victoria del Val (La Fabrica, Madrid, Spain); Wendy Watris (FotoFest, Huston, USA)
Coordinators
Hanna Kaniasta – project coordinator for Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Visual Art Section
Małgorzata Żmijska – project coordinator for Foundation of Visual Education
Consultants
Joanna Studzińska, Krzysztof Candrowicz, Adam Mazur
Marta Szymańska – edition; konradolczak.pl – graphic design; translateria.pl – translation and proofreading;
Grzegorz Czemiel – proofreading
www.photopoland.com.pl // www.iam.pl // www.lodzartcenter.com // www.fotofestiwal.com
© Foundation of Visual Education & Adam Mickiewicz Institute
The album was published as part of PhotoPoland project organized by Adam Mickiewicz Institute
and Foundation of Visual Education.
ISBN 978-83-60794-56-2
ISBN 978-83-60263-70-1
asiazastrozna