This document is still very preliminary, design to be much revised. I need to think much more about the style etc for the diagram. But this is the start of a process developing a creative and ethical framework for my practice going forward. To be a key focus for my work in SYP.
Social responsibility of the artist and implications of discussions around First Things First for the types of work I take on, how I negotiate aims with different audiences and how I develop final outcomes.
My perspective is inevitably linked to my identity as a privileged Western white woman from Cambridge in the South of England. It is also linked to my political perspectives in relation to feminist, socialism, environmentalism and experiences in many other countries when working for international development agencies, including an anthropological research background.
My own work, if not always overtly political, does come from a set of underlying subjective values : a concern with human rights, gender, cultural diversity and democracy together with environmental sustainability. These values however often involve difficult trade offs, conflict of interests and difficult choices. This means messages – like life – are rarely simple or straightforward.
Be visionary, not just negative
First Things Next: Thoughts and Responses
Rick Poynor’s ‘First Things Next’ (insert Harvard ref) is a response to the legacy of Ken Garland’s First Things First.
Poynor re-iterates the need for designers and visual communicators to think about the types of messages they are communicating and how their work can make the world a better place. The diagram text extracts below attempts to contrast the different positions he discusses between:
- those who see the influence that design has over society as requiring designers to be ethical in all their practice
- those who see calls for designers to impose any political/ethical messaging as professionally unrealistic for designers and patronising to their viewers.
Direct messaging
Direct messaging and campaigning can often lead to resistance from people with very different underlying values because they start from different premises.
Over-graphic representations of horror and suffering can also lead to compassion fatigue unless there is a clear message on what people can do to address what they are seeing. (!! Insert refs from documentary photography eg Sontag ‘the pain of others’ etc.
Some of the work of feminist and anti-racist collage artists and graphic designers like Barbara Kruger and Martha Rossler was very effective in its time. Though it can become cliche and dated once people have become used to the ‘message’ – and also the fact that messaging does not necessarily change much.
But I like the overtly political and often angry aesthetic of Gerald Scarfe, Ralph Steadman, Michel Basquiat and the graphic novels of Marjan Satrapi and Art Spiegelman.
Creating Beauty
I have a strong minimalist ascetic streak, behind the excesses, a strong belief in the spiritual value of the natural world and that human beings do not have the right to destroy it. I believe there is great value in producing work that makes people happy in simple ways, emphasises and reasserts beauty – as long as that concept of ‘beauty’ is not elitist, stereotyped, manipulative or leading to overuse of the earth’s resources.
This means I am very drawn to work of writers and illustrators like Shaun Tan, Antoine Saint-Exupery and Sarah Fanelli.
Open questioning/ indirect messaging
I prefer work that takes an indirect messaging approach, aiming to present different questions and approaches for the viewer to think about and make up their own mind.
Much of my previous work on OCA visual communications courses has been of a personal/ psychological/aesthetic nature. I am interested in relationships between people, and the internal struggles that relationships and social engagement involve. Particularly from a feminist perspective and negotiating conflicting cultural influences in my life.
Suggesting solutions and actions
Imagining and creating new ways of doing things
I would like to work further on imagining and creating images of alternative ways of seeing and doing things. To inspire change through showing what is already beautiful and possible in our world if we just open ourselves to see it.
Visual Narrative: Approaches and Emerging Questions
Towards a Framework for Activist Creativity
Useful quotations
In all creative processes a number of possible ideas are created (‘divergent thinking’) before refining and narrowing down to the best idea (‘convergent thinking’)…But the Double Diamond indicates that this happens twice – once to confirm the problem definition and once to create the solution. One of the greatest mistakes is to omit the left-hand diamond and end up solving the wrong problem.
Mat Hunter, Chief Design Officer at the Design Council.
If we make assumptions about what we can and can’t do we are locking off a range of potential solutions.
Downs 2011 p144
“Most of the best ideas I have come from doodling, or playing around with markers – creating ideas from making mistakes.”
Ivan Brunetti 2006 (in Hignite, 2006 quoted OCA Coursebook p148
“Rather than simply ‘failing’ embed risk-taking into your creative process by:
Course text p51.
– establishing challenges or harder ways to solve a problem
– allowing yourself room to play with ideas without ‘finishing’ the project
– adjusting the filters that edit what you think are appropriate reseacrh materials or ideas.
I work across a range of physical and digital media: sketching/drawing, printmaking, photography, collage, painting and animation/moving image. I enjoy risk-taking and ‘happy accidents’ of discovery – and what I learn from ‘unhappy messes’ about how far and in what directions things can be pushed.
!!How to deal with tensions between audience feedback and ‘voice’?? choice of work, identification of appropriate audiences, at what stage to engage? and how far to push??
Assignment 5.1 reflects 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 media.
A key focus – as soon as it is possible after current COVID restrictions end over the summer – is to get back into my art studio to develop images in a wider range of media beyond photography.
A second focus is to look at my decision-making in the light of audience feedback, including audiences for my earlier work in Assignments 2 and 3.
I then draw some conclusions for a creative methodology that can provide a framework for taking risks ‘inside and outside the box’ that make my work more interesting and challenging, but also helps me avoid getting stuck down repetitive unproductive rabbit holes.
At the time of sending Assignment 5 to my tutor In this module because of the COVID pandemic, access to my art studio and printmaking workshops has been severely restricted 2020-2021. As a result my work has been much more dependent on photography and digital media where it is much easier to ‘play safe’ and avoid risk. And ‘acceptable outcomes’ for many audiences need to be ‘tidy’ and conventionally ‘professional’. Nevertheless I have attempted to push my experimentation using creative prompts and develop a creative workflow that can also extend my work in these media.
5.1.1 Bridge Edgelands 1 revisited
I had initially intended to extend my range of printmaking media for this assignment. Including further images that I thought would be suitable for Photoscreen, and also trying other media like solar plate, monoprint and linocut. However because of COVID restrictions printmaking workshops were shut.
I therefore focused on working further on the black and white monochrome images to produce photographic prints in response to feedback from Cambridge Camera Club members. In general the images were too documentary-focused for Exhibitions, or too contrasty because of the camera used. The main exception was the pylon that members suggested I flip to make the reflections a mysterious construction in the sky.
I also experimented with colour styles.
Other narrative-based photography work on the Bridge can be found in:
5.1.2: Aldeburgh Great Escapes revisited
Assignment 5.1.2 Aldeburgh Great Escapes revisits the carnival image series and sketchbooks, looking at storytelling of different perspectives on Carnival in different media:
- Carnival Colour: Aldeburgh 2017 is a Photo Essay on colours – pushing Martin Parr processing further in Nik Viveza and sequencing as an on-line narrative.
- Carnival People: is different black and white selection from the same image series where the focus is on emotions and character – somewhere in-between the Northern documentary of Shirley Baker and the brash New York street photography of Bruce Gilden.
Other new narrative work on Aldeburgh from 2020 can be seen in:
5.1.3: Woman Walking Lost revisited
I have not been able to work any further on this without access to my work studio and updating my working arrangement for digital art. Again in this part of the assignment I aim to select items that are suitable for further work to showcase a wider set of skills beyond photography. I hope to have done part of this in time for the Zoom session.
- E2.1.1 Orange: Visual Dynamics 1 where I applied these creative prompts to experimentation with image and text in Adobe Illustrator. I like this quotation as a more optimistic and light counter to my more angry and ironic work. I want to do quote a bit more work on this in physical media eg a poster version using gelliplate and/or colour masked screenprint that I can do at home. Maybe collage of scanned and printed images cut out as text. Again experimenting with creative prompts.
- E2.1.2 Lost in Blue: Visual Dynamics 2 taking a ‘maximum/minimum/just right’ approach to combinations of image and text. I may be able to do more cyanotype in the garden.
- E2.2 Finding Texts 1: ‘Cornwall on a side saddle’ properly set out in InDesign.
- E2.2 Finding Texts 2: ‘Fairies from the Dark’ developing the images in scraperboard and/or linocut.
- E2.2 Finding Texts 3: The Island starts to flesh out ideas for comic strip and animation in Adobe Fresco and/or watercolour and wash.
- E2.3 Love and Other Islands takes selected images for a Photo Essay as part of audience-based work for Cambridge Camera Club Annual Exhibition.
Assignment 3 Teetotal Street is also revised in the light of my work on documentary narrative in Assignment 5.2. Other narrative work on Cornwall will be further developed as part of Sustaining Your Practice on the basis of a new visit to Cornwall booked for September-October 2021 and Spring 2022.
5.1.4 Light and Life in T’ien Shan revisited
My main work in this part of the assignment was to work on individual photographs following recommendations and suggestions from the Cambridge Camera Club as a showcase gallery on my SMUGMUG website and as submissions to the Cambridge Camera Club annual exhibition. This is described in:
!! More to be done.
The photobooks are further developed together with other photo series from Kyrgyzstan as photobooks and an interactive on-line experience in:
!! still to be done over the summer, after the new lockdown in Kyrgyzstan. I have not yet been able to get the information I need. If I cannot get any more feedback from Kyrgyzstan then I will base my work on memories and Internet.
Cambridge Camera Club Annual Exhibition:
creativity with a professional audience
This involved in particular selection and submission of 12 images in the gallery below to Cambridge Camera Annual Exhibition. Each image is displayed with others at random and judged on its own merits. They are supposed to be as different as possible from each other so as not to be in competition with myself. Awards are given in a number of categories: people, pictorial, creative and travel so my selection included contenders for each of these in each section.
Other images sent to their Zoom sessions were too documentary, intended to retain the audiences attention to provoke questioning rather than the rapid snap judgement assessment made in Camera Club exhibitions and competitions. Nevertheless the feedback was very useful in helping me improve the Documentary of Place images below.
Colour section submission (max 6)
Monochrome section submission (max 6)
Zemni Creative Framework 2021: some conclusions
!! to be significantly developed, including references to VisRes, when I have been able to finalise my work, particularly non-photographic work.
Useful quotations
In all creative processes a number of possible ideas are created (‘divergent thinking’) before refining and narrowing down to the best idea (‘convergent thinking’)…But the Double Diamond indicates that this happens twice – once to confirm the problem definition and once to create the solution. One of the greatest mistakes is to omit the left-hand diamond and end up solving the wrong problem.
Mat Hunter, Chief Design Officer at the Design Council.
If we make assumptions about what we can and can’t do we are locking off a range of potential solutions.
Downs 2011 p144
“Most of the best ideas I have come from doodling, or playing around with markers – creating ideas from making mistakes.”
Ivan Brunetti 2006 (in Hignite, 2006 quoted OCA Coursebook p148
“Rather than simply ‘failing’ embed risk-taking into your creative process by:
Course text p51.
– establishing challenges or harder ways to solve a problem
– allowing yourself room to play with ideas without ‘finishing’ the project
– adjusting the filters that edit what you think are appropriate reseacrh materials or ideas.
I work across a range of physical and digital media: sketching/drawing, printmaking, photography, collage, painting and animation/moving image. I enjoy risk-taking and ‘happy accidents’ of discovery – and what I learn from ‘unhappy messes’ about how far and in what directions things can be pushed.
!!How to deal with tensions between audience feedback and ‘voice’?? choice of work, identification of appropriate audiences, at what stage to engage? and how far to push??
This final part of the blog reflects on what is now my ‘Zemni voice’ in 2021. My voice is increasingly characterised by a particular approach and framework that I would characterise as:
‘ Creative Activism’
This is inspired by a concern to ‘Make the World a Better Place’, but sees creative options for doing this more broadly than overt political messaging. It includes:
- using creative visual exploration and experiment to reflect on and identify my own motivations and increase my understanding of the world and what I am trying to say.
- provoking questioning in the audience rather than ‘preaching’ and promoting understanding between different audiences.
- focusing also on positive visions to inspire, and the beauty in everyday things that can simply make us happy without excessive consumerism that divides people and threatens our planet.
This influences the types of subject matter I am interested in, the ways I combine reportage and creative subjectivity to pose questions in the viewer. I work across a wide range of media and styles, choosing approaches to communicate what I am trying to say about the subject matter. Rather than aiming for any one ‘consistent look’. But my aesthetic tends towards:
‘political sublime’
on the ‘brighter side of life’
(when I am not angry).
5.1 Zemni Creativity with an audience: finishing work
Assignment 5.1 reflects 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 media.
A key focus – as soon as it is possible after current COVID restrictions end – is to get back into my art studio to develop images in a wider range of media beyond photography.
A second focus is to look at my decision-making in the light of audience feedback, including audiences for my earlier work in Assignments 2 and 3.
I then draw some conclusions for a creative methodology that can provide a framework for taking risks ‘inside and outside the box’ that make my work more interesting and challenging, but also helps me avoid getting stuck down repetitive unproductive rabbit holes.
At the time of sending Assignment 5 to my tutor In this module because of the COVID pandemic, access to my art studio and printmaking workshops has been severely restricted 2020-2021. As a result my work has been much more dependent on photography and digital media where it is much easier to ‘play safe’ and avoid risk. And ‘acceptable outcomes’ for many audiences need to be ‘tidy’ and conventionally ‘professional’. Nevertheless I have attempted to push my experimentation using creative prompts and develop a creative workflow that can also extend my work in these media.
!! Insert gallery of non-photographic images.
Cambridge Camera Club
Annual Exhibition
Colour section provisional submission selection (max 6) to be finally decided by 18th March
Monochrome section provisional submission selection (max 6) to be finally decided by 18th March
5.1.1.Bridge Printscapes Revisited
See revisions and development in:
5.1.2 Aldeburgh Great Escapes revisited
See revisions and development in:
5.1.3 Woman Walking Lost revisited
!! still to be done when I again have access to my studio
5.1.4 Light and Life in T’ien Shan revisited
!! still to be done when COVID in Kyrgyztsan improves, or over summer as far as I can.
5.2 Zemni Activism: Creating Narratives
In Assignment 5.2 I focus on different types of narrative, and how I can systematically use creative prompts to identify different perspectives and interpretations of the same image series, then push these images in different ways and media to communicate very different narratives. As a way of exploring and thinking around what I want to say about places, and how best to do it.
I focus particularly, but not only, on photography-based narrative, I explore the different narrative principles and questions involved in:
- sequential narratives in the form of Photo Essays and Photobooks: Under the Bridge, Lockdown Photo Essays, Reflections in Grey, Teetotal Street, Light in the Shadows of T’ien Shan, and cartoon strip of the Island??.
- time-based narratives in the form of Moving Image and animations: Aldeburgh Morning Light, Reflections in Grey ( Moving Image/video, the Island?? (animation).
- interactive narratives: Cuckoos at Dawn
Linking to my consideration of visual narrative in my OCA personal development Moving Image module. But I also look at illustrated and animated narrative linking to my work for Visual Research module.
My narrative development for Bridge and Aldeburgh also draws substantially on sketchbook work in different media.
!!The items in black still need some work to finalise what is already there. Items in red italic have materials ready and first drafts, but need substantial new work over the summer. Or will be mapped out eg as annotated Photo Essays as work for inclusion in Sustaining Your Practice.
5.2.1
Bridge Edgelands
A14 road bridge as an ‘underworld’ of two separate sides of the River Cam that never link.
5.2.4 Reflections from the Mountains of Heaven
Outsider documentary.
5.3 Portfolio
In addition to finalising the current blog, I have added relevant material from this module and other audience-relevant information on a number of on-line websites and networking sites. Specific links were given on the portfolio above.
- zemniimages.com my professional SMUGMUG website which will be redesigned to link the different aspects of my graphic art, photography and printmaking practice.
- zemniimages facebook page, twitter and instagram.
- zemniimages blog and/or sub-blogs with attention to SEO requirements and including my posts on key inspiration and image making techniques that would attract visitors to my work (my Printmaking blog was successful in attracting 2,000 visitors a month without any promotion effort from me through visitor Google searches on collagraph, linocut and some printmakers)
- gamechange blog, Facebook page and You Tube channel
- stock photography, Behance and other marketing sites.
- slideshow tasters on a new Zemni You Tube Channel.
Because of COVID it proved impossible to show physically at galleries and exhibitions planned for 2020 eg in Wymondham with OCA East Anglia Student group and/or exhibitions of Cambridge Camera Club. I had also intended to get audience feedback from visitors to campsites and Camping Club meetups in East Anglia, Cornwall and North of England.
Going forward I will send selected work to the various on-line commercial card and print marketing sites, and approach some of the tourist card and book shops in Cambridge, East Anglia, St Ives and Lake District and explore opportunities to present some of my printmaking at print exhibitions in Cambridge and elsewhere.
5.4 Reviewing My Practice
This module has explored and developed my creative process – the choices I make in terms of what I want to communicate and how I establish that and how image design and technical aspects of the particular medium can enhance that communication. I have focused on a range of media:
- Printmaking: photoscreen and cyanotype
- Photography and Photobooks
- Drawing and illustration in natural and digital media including Adobe Illustrator, iPad softwarepencil, ink, gouache and scraperboard.
- Animation, Moving Image and interactivity.
I have also tried to reconnect with some of the more beautiful, funny and light-hearted aspects of life, as well as dealing implicitly or explicitly with some of the serious social and environmental issues we face in England as well as in countries like Kyrgyzstan.
I summarise my conclusions about the best forms of presentation/ changes I still need to make and implications for my Creative Process and outline further possibilities to reach a wider range of audience and also markets whilst still maintaining my social and political voice.
1 ‘Everyday Normals’
This first body of work is a sketchbook of daily notes and sketches over a month before my 67th birthday: April 10th to May 9th. It consists of a series of experimental sketchbooks that provide a ‘safe creative fun space’ for:
- ranting, raving and following interesting ideas, even if they lead nowhere
- experimenting with visual effects of different drawing, painting and collage media and styles
- helping me think through all the multiple moods, thoughts and influences bombarding me everyday to motivate or prevent me from changing everyday habits
- helping me to get a better sense of how I think ‘new normal’ should look like and start to make the necessary personal changes
- clarify my subjective ‘voice’ that influences and informs my documentary work on location.
Some of these images, thoughts and ideas will be included in the final project ‘Building Back Better? 2022’.
1.1: Everyday Normals: Sketchbook Diary April-May 2021 and April-May 2022
This first body of work is a a day by day diary bringing together ‘old normal and memories, daily reflections and serendipitous responses to Erwitt’s photographs for the day against a backdrop of news events. I started in April 10th till May 9th leading up to my 67th birthday. I then revisit over the same month in 2022 to chart changes that have taken place. It provides a ‘safe creative fun space’ for:
- ranting, raving and following interesting ideas, even if they lead nowhere
- experimenting with visual effects of different drawing, painting and collage media and styles
- helping me think through all the multiple moods, thoughts and influences bombarding me everyday to motivate or prevent me from changing everyday habits
- helping me to get a better sense of how I think ‘new normal’ should look like and start to make the necessary personal changes
- clarify my subjective ‘voice’ that influences and informs my documentary work on location.
It also contains very small experimental sketchbooks of ‘Creative Cut’ imaginary narratives created by cutting up and stapling A4 doodle sketches in my frontroom as exercises in ‘everyday creative serendipity’. These form part of my work on 5.2 Creative Cuts.
1.2: The Garden
A body of work charting my attempts over the summer of 2021 to summer 2022 to incorporate meditations in my garden into my everyday life against the backdrop of bio-diverse dramas and carnage in my chaotic and overgrown wildlife garden. It brings together two projects:
1) A5 ‘Zen cover’ sketchbook of ink and watercolour drawings of ‘mindful thoughts of wisdom’ with sketches of drama and rats. This may be further developed as a small illustrated book, or simply incorporated into my work on ‘Building Back Better’.
2) Animated movie of light, shadow and dramas building on Assignment 2 Seasonal Synaesthesia for my personal development module Moving Image 1. This will be developed as a longer narrative animated movie.
