In the October issue of the Polish émigré magazine ‘Kontakty’, an interview with me about Baba with a fish appeared. ‘Kontakty’ is the most popular monthly magazine among Berlin’s Polish diaspora, which has been published systematically in Berlin since 1 March 1995. It is distributed free of charge with a circulation of 15,000 thousand.
Baba with a fish and her journey around the world
Do you know her? Have you seen it somewhere? The popularity of the fish baby continues to grow. It has already been seen in Australia, North America, South America, many European countries… Some decorate their homes with it, some decorate their… bodies with it! We love it on our T-shirts and wear it as a brooch. We also know someone who has it on their bathroom door. Read an interview with artist Marta Janik, who made this unique illustration.
Editorial ‘Kontakty’: Where did Baba with the fish come from?
Marta Janik: At first Baba with a fish was a collage, only later did it become a linocut. The inspiration came from an old photograph of a street in Praga-Północ, a district of Warsaw I like very much. You can see the whole process of making Baba on my website www.martajanik.com. In the photo you can see a street, probably Targowa, and people walking on it. There is a woman among them and I once cut her out of the picture because I usually make collages. I don’t know why, I just cut her out, and because she looked sad herself, I decided to give her something under her arm. Why was it a fish? Maybe that’s one of the secrets of creation. I simply had a beautiful fish that I had cut out earlier. I didn’t ponder for long. And hop! Very good for that fish under that armpit.
But it is not the collage that has become a hit, but the black and white version.
Yes, linocut. It’s just that one day I wanted to do more than just collage, I liked the technique of linocut, which is a graphic technique where the matrix is linoleum in which you gouge a drawing. So I started chiselling and one day I chiselled out a Baba with a fish, created a black and white graphic, put it on the internet and it began….
What was happening?
In fact, it happens all the time. Baba got hundreds of likes on a good day. People started writing to me, sending their stories from different parts of the world, asking if they could get her tattooed. Some people didn’t know that I was the author, in the beginning indeed my name got lost, now it’s easy to establish authorship and if someone wants to, they can easily find me.
Why do you think the baba has become so popular?
I think she fits into some archetypes present in almost every culture. I’ve heard from Irish people that the baba is an Irish baba after all, I’ve seen someone mistakenly describe my print as an Old Japanese print, I once had a print bought from me by an Inuit fan claiming that the baba reminded him of their art and culture.
What is the most beautiful story you have heard from people?
I once got an email from a girl called Melisa from Chile. She wrote that she came across Baba with a fish by chance and immediately fell in love with it. She was pregnant at the time and began to call her unborn child ‘my fish’ and saw herself as this Baba. A boy was born and she named him Gaspar Pez, which means fish in Spanish. One Brazilian man had a Baba tattooed on his calf in honour of his grandmother, who used to fish in the Amazon. Tali from Israel has a Baba on her arm, reminding her of her grandmother who supposedly always bought the biggest fish at the market…. These stories always move me and I love them!
You have decided to protect the Baba sign. Why?
Because it was starting to be stolen from me. I decided to go through the whole procedure of registering the trademark and for a few months now Baba has a number and is protected, it has been legally registered by the European Union Intellectual Property Office. I am happy about this, even though some companies in countries like China or Turkey, for example, have no scruples, they feel impunity and steal artists’ designs. Unfortunately, this happens very often, so I appeal: let us pay attention to which sites we buy things from, such as T-shirts or bags. As a rule, these items are cheap but use illustrations illegally. I can only hope that there are plenty of people who would rather buy a T-shirt from the artists and support them in this way. For every show of solidarity, I am very grateful. I focus on quality, so prints or T-shirts ordered from me are made on the best papers, made of organic cotton and produced in Poland.
What else has Baba surprised you with?
That she appears on skateboards and that she has become the heroine of a song. A band from Warsaw, funnily enough called ‘Baby’ – because three women sing in it – wrote a song about her, which in the Warsaw Music Poll became (thanks to people’s votes) the Warsaw Hit of the Year 2023! When I heard the song, I fell, Magda Glowacka, the lyricist, is great and I am still humming to this day ‘Early in the morning she’s passing, a woman at the back of the Rozyc, something under her hand still holding, what is it?’. I encourage you to look for this song on YouTube or on my website. I’m also terribly excited because a computer game starring Baba is being made! I can’t wait!
Is it possible to see Baba somewhere in Berlin?
Because I lived in the city for seven years, I visit it often. The prints will soon be available in the Polish bookshop BuchBund, and I must admit that I often put stickers with Baba on them in various places, so stay tuned! You might just spot her around the corner!
