"WITH AN "S" ON MY CHEST"

Capricious Publishing owner, Sophie Mörner interview
www.becapricious.com

Sophie Mörner, is the founder of Capricious magazine, and therefore Capricious Publishing. She is based in New York, and has a nice chihuahua called Pirate.
Here is the story:

F-R: How did the whole Capricious thing start and when?
Sophie: I started Capricious Magazine in 2002 , and relased the first issue in Paris april 2003. I felt like there was a need for a journal for emerging photographers with a focus on fine art photography.

F-R:You're originally from Sweden, why did you end up in New York?
Sophie: I moved to NYC for school in 1998, and since then I never wanted to leave New York. I did leave though, I moved to Amsterdam in the end of 2003 for a little bit more than a year, which was a great experience. It was nice to be back in Europe after 5 years in America. But I knew I had to move back to nyc, and I did in 2005.

F-R:You're basically a photographer, what is your current work as photographer?
Sophie: I just had a solo show in Stockholm, with my Androgynous Portraits Series I have been working on for some years. It was a lot of fun.
And I also do some commercial photo projects here and there for money, which keeps me photographing. Other than that, I always photograph, I have an on going series around some of my closest friends, that I have been photographing since 1998. One day that will be a book, haha! Its kind of “melancholy spirits running free” feeling. Haha.

F-R:How do you manage to work both intense projects!
Sophie: I don’t know, it just works some how. I wish I had more time for my own photography though..

F-R: How do you want to develop Capricious Publishing?
Sophie: Capricious Publishing has grown a lot the last year, which has been really exiting. We now publish three journals, Capricious, GLU and Famous on a regular basis. But we also guest published an issue of LTTR, which was a great collaboration. And we are always open for proposal by new projects.
Oh, we are also giving out a DVD, Screen Capricious, which is a collection of video/film shorts from emerging video artists from all over the world. Screen capricious is guest curated by Amy von Harrington. It will be released right before Christmas.
Next year we are also publishing a couple of books.

F-R:It seems really important for you to keep this independent, almost hand-made, small editions. What do you think about the current monopolization of the big press media and publication group companies ?

Sophie: I think that we all have to survive, and in this world its really hard to resist. Resist a lot of things. I believe a lot in “take from the big and give to the small” and sometimes being on the “inside” of big cooperations can be helpful. I will never despise any independent journal that decided to get bought up by a big cooperation, because I know how hard it is to survive, and it’s a really rough world to try to function in the media world.
I don’t think I would personally ever let myself be bought up though. There is something lost in that transition, that I am not ready to loose.

F-R:Actually, all your publications are done by women, is it a political choice for you to support women? Is it one of the conditions to be part of Capricious world?
Sophie: I don’t think in those gender terms really, to follow the gender terms that are given to us, is to accept a gendered system, this we are against.. It just happens that there is a lot of powerful women that does the most excellent things, actually, I think women rule the world.

F-R: What or who is your leitmotiv?
Sophie: My inspiration? When I started capricious I was inspired by the “young” years of Purple. I loved what they did in the beginning. Now im inspired by nature. Smile..

F-R:What's your next steps?
Sophie: To let Capricious grow organically. To keep searching for new talents and make things possible for them!

Are you a Superwoman? Yes you are!