Zemni Images

Linda Mayoux Creative Notes for Activism

Zemni Images

Losing things is about the familiar falling away.
Getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing.

Rebecca Solnit ‘A Field Guide to Getting Lost’ 2005

‘This question of whether something is fact or fiction
is a reduction of the bookends with which we live our lives’

Walid Raad 106 Infinity Award

My creative work explores interlinkages and overlaps between the ‘bookends’ of my personal responses to places and events and a more political ‘voice’ and activist approach to social and environmental documentary.

Creative image-making and writing are necessary for my own process of making sense of life in our sometimes beautiful, but often insane world. 

In my ‘parallel life’ as global consultant in participatory development in Africa, Asia and Latin America I meet many wonderful, inspiring people. I see stunningly beautiful scenery – human rural and urban landscapes as well as ‘wild natural’ remote environments. I also see many shocking examples of violence, exploitation, environmental degradation, waste and powerlessness. 

The more I travel, the more questions I bring back about life at home  – where are our ‘developed’ lives trying to get to, why and at what cost? My image-making is a way of working through the darker side to come out the other end and ‘look on the bright side of life’.

Underpinning all my work is an interest in narrative and interlinkages, complementarities and conflicts between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ perspectives, and how to navigate the inevitably infinite range of creative possibilities to create images and narratives that can in some ethical sense ‘make our world a better place’ and reach people who do not have the resources and privilege to buy ‘quality work’.

I work in a range of still and moving image formats in a range of media combining photography, drawing/painting, printmaking, digital media and writing.

Some of my work is experimental, exploring different media and effects in response to a wide range of briefs.

Alongside my own artistic practice I support processes for collaborative art, photography, video and web communications as part of peoples’ own documentation of their lives.

  • Graphic Design

  • Photography

  • Moving Image

  • Art Illustration

  • Printmaking

  • Words Words

abstraction activism Africa alphabet animation black and white blobs book covers British calligraphy charcoal children China collage colour conceptual art constructivism dada design cultures designer design history design movement design movements documentary drawing drypoint environment Etching. experimental typography fanzines feminism feminist gaze film French futurism geometric Greed Game grunge identity illustration image and text imaginings ink Islamic Islamic Art Islamic design Islamic modern Islamic traditional design Italy Japanese Design Japanese traditional design landscape letterforms line linocut modernism modernist modernist movement monoprint natural forms oil Oman paint painting paper papermaking personal philosophical photobook photographer photography photomontage political poster printmaking psychogeography publishing Russia satire Saudi Arabia scanning suprematism Swiss International Style text and image travel treacle typeface typographer typography history typography style UAE US video Western design Western Design Movements Western typography woodcut word art yellow