Social Clubs in the Project of Ursula Sprecher and Andi Cortellini

Ursula Sprecher and Andi Cortellini, 45 and 50 years old

Swiss photographers, were born and currently live in Basel. Graduated for Basel School of Arts and Crafts (photography major). Received the main prize for their series “HobbyBuddies” at Art Show Miami 2011. The project was exhibited in Switzerland, America and Italy.

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In “HobbyBuddies” it was important for us to cover as broad range of people as possible: men, women, children, representatives of different religious and social classes; and of course as many themes and interests as possible: sports, technology, crafts, games, music. We spent a lot of time on the Internet searching for clubs. We got some of the ideas from our friends. Sometimes we just asked ourselves: “Are there any people united by Christmas?” This is how we found Santa Claus Club.

All photographs in the series are staged. We spent 4-6 days for one photograph. We used this time to find a group, agree about cooperation, come up with the idea of the photograph, get used to the location and shooting points, decide how many people will be in the picture, and how many of them men and women, what they will be wearing, find the props and choose the day. The shooting itself lasted for no more than 2 hours. This was the fastest part of our work.

Sometimes we came up with the idea for a photograph even before we found the club. This happened with the divers. We wanted to make a picture of the divers in the empty swimming pool. We found a perfect location, and then we only had to contact people who trained there.

Shooting the poodle club was wonderful: cameras, lots of lamps, other poodles behind the scenes and their owners who were worried how their dogs would turn out in the pictures. The dogs were very well trained, but they would not stand the way we had wanted them to. Luckily, we realized it wasn’t that necessary.

We were once asked about our favorites in these series. Andi quickly replied it was the scout club, and I said, “Right, the scouts. Or maybe “Star Wars”?” Andi reacted, “Yes! “Star Wars” or the smokers? Or the knitters?”. Finally, we had to say, “We are sorry, but we don’t think we have favorites.”

{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_01.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Santa Claus Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_02.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Butchers Association”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_03.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Astronomy Association”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_04.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”BDSM-club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_05.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Billiards Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_06.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Boardgames Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_07.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Wind Band Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_08.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Camping and Caravanning Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_09.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Children’s Chess Section”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_10.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Culinary Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_11.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Scientific Taxidermy Association”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_12.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Diving Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_13.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Movie Critics Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_14.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Majorette and Show Dancers Company”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_15.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Shooters Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_16.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Pipe Smokers Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_17.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Municipal Firemen Brigade”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_18.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Poodle Owners Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_19.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Scout Section”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_20.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Swiss Garrison of Legion 501″}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_21.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Tamil Association”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_22.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Old Plane Lovers Club”}


{“img”: “/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hobby-buddies_23.jpg”, “alt”: “”, “text”:”Tram Club”}