"Zła Uczennica", is the collaborative work of collage artist Ashkan Hornarvar and photographer Magdalena Franczuk. Inspired by Lolita, evoking her curiosity, stubbornness and naïve exuberance, the series of images explores themes of coming of age.
Franczuk’s short story behind the series tells us of a girl attempting her biology homework, but who finds herself distracted by something as mundane as the cracks in the ceiling. Within these markings, she imagines a map that leads her to the wonders of procrastination…
The title of the series, a Polish phrase meaning “the bad schoolgirl”, presents one way of understanding the girls in each image. Yet there are also all these other impressions – call them excuses – that come to mind: not of a “bad” schoolgirl, but rather of one whose repressed creativity is spilling uncontrollably from her curious mind.
The works contrast this deliberate monotony of Franczuk’s photographs with Honarvar’s colourful and crude handmade collages, combining a bland and lifeless reality with the endless possibilities of imagination.
