Zemni Illustration blog brings together my work, research and thoughts for Open College of the Arts Visual Communications level 3 module: Advanced Practice.
Review of work
My work for this module develops an evolving idea of ‘Zemni Voice’ as ‘activist creativity’ and what this might mean for a coherent and consistent approach to my work in UK and internationally. Because health issues now mean that I can no longer travel for my professional consultancy work with international development agencies, I aimed to start to resolve the schizophrenia between visual communication linked to my professional consultancy and more fun ‘meaning of life’ work, linking the latter to UK-based global activism as the basis for my UK-based practice going forward. I aimed to develop some sort of coherence of creative experimental approach without becoming bound by rigid ‘recognisable style’ or limiting the range of potential types of work I find interesting and worthwhile.
The COVID-19 pandemic presented many challenges – particularly for documentary and audience-based work in Assignments 4 and 5, and because of self-isolation arrangements I did not have access to my art and printmaking studios between March 2019 and August 2021. I was also unable to visit computer shops to test RSI-friendly upgrade of my computer hardware. Apart from sketchbook work in the garden in summer 20201, this module focused much more on digital photography and Photobooks than I intended, with some work on photography-based print media: photoscreen, solar plate and cyanotype using the Curwen printmaking studio.
These constraints also provided motivation and opportunities to develop new ways of on-line working and networking, particularly with Cambridge Camera Club, social and OCA networks I will continue to strengthen for audience feedback going forward. All the projects developed in this module lay the basis for further development in different media, some as part of SYP.
!! PLEASE NOTE: SOME OF THE LINKS BELOW MAY HAVE BROKEN. If so, please use links to key material in padlet on the right.
Zemni Images Portfolio 2019
1: Understanding My Practice: Zemni Voice 2019
Assignment 1 started by taking stock of my visual communication work to date, looking at different approaches to creative process and the directions I might want to push my practice. In particular ways of linking a socio-political approach to social/political documentary and landscape with the more ‘fun’ aspects of the work I want to do. And identifying existing skills and skills I would want to develop in order to do the sorts of work I want to do going forward.
Links to original assignments:
Assignment 2: Edit and Amend Landscapes of Place
Assignment 2 ‘Landscapes of Place’ revisits earlier work on UK and develops new work around the idea of ‘landscape’ and ‘landscaping’. I focus on issues of image selection for on-line galleries, slideshows and photo books and ways of communicating different narratives through different image selection and/or digital processing in different software and styles.
Links to original assignments:
2.1 Edit: Bridge Printscapes
‘Bridge’ revisits landscape print-making, presenting a series of four A3 screenprints in the context of discussions around psycho-geography and ‘Edgelands’. The ‘grunge’ style so evident in the photoscreen prints is then applied in SilverFX to a series of documentary photographs of the Bridge and its Edgelands (further developed in 5.2.1 Bridge Edgelands).
2.2 Amend: Shutterscapes
In Assignment 2.2 I focused on ‘Shutterscapes’, revisiting some photographs that had accompanied sketchbooks for Illustration courses. I looked at how the processing and technology of capture of images can be further manipulated in digital processing – Lightroom and ColoFX – to create different interpretations. And starting to look at narrative sequencing as draft Photobooks and Slideshows from Lightroom. I also started to submit images to stock libraries, particularly Shutterstock. (further developed in 5.1.1 Shutterscapes II: Carnival Days)
2: Text and Image:
Woman Living Lost
‘Woman Living Lost’ looks at processes of perception, creativity and becoming open to risk-taking and the unexpected. It develops interlinkages between subjective and objective narratives and explores different ways of combining illustration and photographic images and text.
Links to original assignments:
3: Audience:
Light and Life in the
Mountains of Heaven
Using photoseries from a short stay in Baizakh Village in Naryn Province in 2016, I continue my interest in subjective and objective approaches to documentary:
- I look in more depth at the ways different photographic styles communicate narrative.
- I use different drawing and paint media to explore different interpretations of the photographs to increase the power and range of my photographic practice.
- I experiment with different book design and narrative approaches to publishing the photographs and drawings.
I look at different ways to work with audiences in Kyrgyzstan, UK and elsewhere in development of the books – as people whose voices I wish to communicate and source of ideas and contextual information and on-line and face-to-face feedback on the final works.
Links to original assignments:
5.1.2 (Assignment 3) A week in Teetotal Street, St Ives, Cornwall
5.1.3 (Assignments 4.1 and 4.2) Light and Life in the Mountains of Heaven
5.2.1 Bridge: Visions from the Under World: Cambridge
5.2.2 Reflections in Grey, Aldeburgh, Suffolk
5.2.3: The Garden of Mindfulness
4: Presentation:
Zemni Activist Creativity 2021
‘Zemni 2021’ reviews, extends and presents possible future directions for the four main bodies of work that I have developed in this module.
Links to original assignments:
Assignment 5.1 Creativity with an Audience
I revisit Assignments 2-4, reflecting on visual communication in single images and the evolution of my creative practice across different media during this module. It brings together different creative approaches and frameworks, applying these to selected images to either present alternative messages, or develop alternative images in different physical and digital media.
I develop selected images to a professional standard through on-line networking with professional networks – specifically around submissions to Cambridge Camera Club Annual Exhibition. But the main interest is a review and deepening of my subjective process of ‘landscaping place’ and different ways that I can develop and combine the same images to create very different subjective narratives.
Assignment 5.2 ‘Lost Reflections’
This includes new work and bringing together photo series from Assignments 2-4 to experiment with different forms of documentary narrative: Photo Essays, cartoons, photobooks, moving image, animation and interactivity. Continuing to explore and experiment with ways that style and technique affect the interpretations, how narratives are created within images and between images in a sequence and the potential role of text in contextualising/ complementing/ questioning the image.
Assignment 5.3 Zemni 2021 Portfolios
Assignment 5.4 Presenting my Practice
Other blogs and websites
This Visual Communications Advanced Practice module complements other more political work based on my professional work in international development that is developed in other modules for this degree. This blog complements and links to my other blogs and websites
- Zemni Images professional website that houses high resolution images of my Visual Communications portfolios and my photography portfolios and archives.
- Zemni Images blog a portfolio site that showcases the best work from my previous and current Visual Communications courses.
- Visual Communication for Development looking at issues in my professional work in international development for the OCA Visual Research course.
- Zemni Printmaking being developed and updated from my OCA printmaking courses.
- Zemni Photography from OCA photography courses I tool as a leisure student
- Zemni Moving Image blog for OCA personal development module Moving Image 1 animation.
- Gamechange Network professional consultancy blog that houses and links participatory pictorial methodologies and other outputs from the different international development projects and partners I have worked with.