Maryam Al Khalifa

A journal about the happenings of my creative practice.

[bdsm--life]

Yoon Young Bae for Dazed & Confused Korea January 2018, photographed by Zoo Yongyun

[maryamalkhalifa]

OK-RM - Patcharavipa 

Typographic Inspiration for Manifesto Layout. Great branding ideas, the use of color, textures, and papers shows subtle variety in the objects created for Parcharavipa. The layout of the elements page was something that really stood out to me for my manifesto project. It’s clean, organized, legible, and just simply elegant. The text is separated into paragraphs and each paragraphs has its own theme, which is labeled with a title at the top of each paragraph, center aligned, while the paragraph itself is self contained within itself. I think this is really effective and I plan on applying it to my own work. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

What happened with Movement

- As a group we’ve made the most items. 

- The installation was the most successful, especially with the hanging fish. 

- The individual posters showed individual style. 

- Communicated well, context is solid. 

- The movement needs aesthetic consistency, and I need to loosen up. (like in life)

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1. The installation invites you to the space. 

2. You then go towards the smaller items. 

3. Items were simply communicative because we had strong values. 

4. A5 posters could have been bigger. 

5. We gave justice to the movement, our voice was was sensitive and appropriate and present. 

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I found that I’m self-critical, ,distracted, apprehensive, and strung up. I seriously need to forgive myself. This is my first exhibition in this degree, it’s a good starting point. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

Random Bus Visit

I think we might have been one of the smaller group to have done this task. It’s definitely because we did it on the 1st for December, the day after Unit 1 submissions. Nonetheless, Noah, Balkar, and I managed to take the 185 bus headed towards Lewisham Station and got off at Champion Hill, which is in Catford. Along with this photoessay, the postcard that we constructed for the tutors using the posters & cardboard we found in the area explains our experience of making small observations about this somewhat lackluster residential area in South East London. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

Things got weird in Lightroom

A total detour from the making of the movement mini posters. I guess this is what happens with you toggle with the buttons.. 

I could use this in the future to as part of a packaging project, especially if the concept calls for a brighter mood than this specific movement. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

A/V Presentation

10 Weeks into Chelsea College A Reflective Manifesto

[maryamalkhalifa]

Laser Cut Morning

From the laser cut session I had two personal projects in mind , and also wanted to make a second linocut of my pattern made in the workshop. 

1. A sketchbook front and back cover. The front cover, being an illustration of my initials in Arabic “MK” & the back cover an engraved illustration of a jellyfish. Now the next step is to find a way to make the sketchbook with a ring bind, and a way to have paper that also fits within the holes. I wish that I previously followed the standard way of binding a ring bound book to make this process so much easier and less daunting. 

2. A panel of the word “Amore” which I think is my favorite 5 letter word. I wanted to just have in a physical format, because I wanted to feel the word, especially when engraved into the material in this manner. 

The Lino cut will be used as a part of a double sided letterpress block, and it was the alternative to the original Lino cut outs where I was left with small triangular pieces. Having the engraved version would show the a more precise version in the final block, as the other side wouldn’t have the same alignment. Whether it’ll be a good outcome or not, I don’t know. I think either way, making mistakes with this shows me the value of being meticulous when it comes to using the workshops to make objects like these.

[maryamalkhalifa]

Swedish Crime Drama

The full video can be found here

As a group we were all excited to film this video as we knew that we had the liberty of being dramatic and shoot loads of B-roll videos. Initially we didn’t have much of a script or story line to the video because we knew it was going to be guided by the music instead, as that makes a video impactful. We also wanted to treat this as a trailer, so we were given the space to not a have a direct story line. As a group we rotated with being the art directors, directors, videographers, and actors. We all did it in the capacity that we felt comfortable in. Everyone in the group was a perfectionist and were serious about the work that they want to present, so that allowed us to be efficient finding a resolve for this process without wasting anytime contemplating or slacking off. 

Halfway through the filming process we found that we needed to have a reflective narrative that would relate it to the context of the brief, which is to be reflective of our time in the course. So I took it upon myself to write the poem that is seen in the screenshots above. It was ambiguous enough to fit the mood of the video, but still was applicable to our time in Chelsea. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

“S” woodcut thumbnails

My short trip back to Bahrain was an opportunity to take photos of the woodcut that could fit it in an artistic context. The word was slip up, and from the photoshoot I found that hanging off the letters from a palm tree (like a decorated Christmas tree) would be a cool concept since every letter has a chance of slipping off of the tree, and slipping up. I personally preferred the brown, natural wood side of the cut out, and I think its ironic to photograph it next to another tree as well, even though they aren’t the same kind of tree. 

I could pitch this to my group and ask if they would want to lend me their letters over Christmas break so that I could take photographs of them for them too. I’l also see what ideas they have as well since I already hav one or two photos that I feel are strong enough on their own. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

Photography Workshop Thumbnails

Under the guidance of Alex, we were given the opportunity to take photographs of our objects and peers in order to imitate a reference photo. These were the thumbnails from the exercise. 

This was the first time that I have used a DSLR to take photographs, as I usually depend on my mirrorless digital camera to take photos. So with this now, there’s another layer of clarity and heaviness to the expereince of taking photographs, which I think is appropriate to the studio, but I understand how I wouldn’t use it when I’m on the go as it’s too technical for spontaneity. 

I also found the value in post-production editing, as the color grading taken from a DSLR is completely not my taste, it amplifies reality and I feel really uncomfortable with that personally. I’m able to fix this in Lightroom afterwards, but now I know the distinct differences from these two different cameras, and I’m able to be more versatile with photographic projects from now on as I can feel comfortable using both only in the ways that they are suited for. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

Manifesto Developments

After the short presentation where different techniques of typography were pointed out to us, we were left to attempt to apply these points to our own manifestos. 

The manifesto that I chose was one that I wrote for my A/V video, therefore it’s reflective of my studentship at Chelsea thus far. 

This session allowed me to test out different ways of setting type, using different font families, compositions, and the technical working of how to set type systematically to a grid. From this session, I found that I’m disgusted by type that has different words laid out differently to the rest of the sentence, especially if it’s happening in every paragraph. I don’t want to be loud with this, I want to find the most orderly way of setting the body text, and focus instead on the contrast in scale between the title and the body. I want the title to be seen from afar, and the body text to be only readable once you’re at a 10 cm distance from the poster. I also want to the experience of reading the body text to be classic, quiet, and unobtrusive; as if you’re reading a book or a magazine. 

Moving forward, I want to read up on the classic typographical mistakes and answer the question of what makes good typography for myself. This is because every time I previously had a task that deals with typography, I’m worried that it’s not correct or the right way to do it. I want to resolve this for this task right now. 

In addition, the 1920-30s title type is just a placeholder based on my personal preferences. I do understand the importance of matching the type to the mood of the object that is being made, and how type evokes a certain mood to people especially if they’re not biased towards it, they could be confused as to why I would use that type, and I know that saying “I just like it” is not a good answer. This will be changed accordingly. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

Revising Our Values & Development

The full presentation is found here.

Condensing and refining our values was necessary for us to be able to create work without overthinking, because the statement is now our contextual anchor. We can now create our Artefacts with a lighter heart and stronger integrity. For the exhibition we plan to make multiples of what we have already made, incorporate them into different designs and Artefacts, and to create more concepts in order to curate a collection to be exhibited on Dec. 7. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

First Poster Development 

Here you can see how each member of the group contributed to the poster. I wasn’t heavily involved with this poster because I also had the task of constructing the presentation and making sense of our values and influences that was agreeable to the rest of the group. 

This was a situation where delegation of tasks were necessary in order to produce & prepare the final outcomes because we don’t have the time to be together to do the work as a group since they’re all individual tasks put together anyways. 

For my contribution, I wanted to work by hand in order to not be caged by the precision that the computer provides, and to refer back to my influences from the DPRK. This also allowed me to stick to a strict color palette which fed into how I could work the composition. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

Phaidon’s Everyday Graphics from the DPRK

This was a book that I personally read through for my enjoyment. While reading I found that there were a number of examples of Neo-constructivism combined with traditional North Korean aesthetics that aligned with some of the aesthetic values that we discussed in “Red Weather”. 

I like how these designs were made for everyday objects (cosmetic packaging, cigarette packaging, stamps)

They are highly decorative and expressive of  their values and personal visual language. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

Constructivist Art - A personal study

I personally needed to do this contextual research in order to have a better understanding of what the movement was, so I can confidently talk about the movement because I had a very basic understanding of it previously. I also needed find how we can practically apply it to our movement along with the context of environmentalism. 

I found that, 

The seed of constructivism was to demonstrate the experience of modern life.

Constructivists were the constructors of a new society, they were cultural workers on par with scientists in their search for solutions to modern problems.

The artifacts to be created are a means to an end. A translation of ideas & designs to be mass produced, and in our case mass communicated.

“Truth to materials” - the belief that materials should be employed only in accordance with their capacities.

[maryamalkhalifa]

Movement Presentation & First Poster

Full & Detailed Presentation found here

The original presentation just included the title of each subsection, (no body text) while depending on the group to say everything that’s being said. That made the presentation a bit lackluster, even though there has been a lot of thinking involved with this movement. In the month before, we’ve had numerous conversations as a group about this topic, getting to know which parts of environmentalism we cared about specifically, how to visualize it, and how to illustrate it for it to be informative and communicative. That resulted in a poster that did look very illustrated, and like a “book cover” as said by our peers. It was literal and illustrative, and looking back there are better ways to give this poster greater justice to the cause. 

So that along with my reading of constructivist art, and “The Green Patriot” fed into the context in which we want to operate. Along with our conversations as a group on the matter, we found that there are many directions that this movement can take, and that’s what’s being represented in the presentation. 

The next step for us as a group was to focus our entire concept into two sentences, and to allow that condensed statement anchor the making of our work, because that will enable us to create a lot more work without trying too hard to align them with our beliefs. 

[maryamalkhalifa]

20.11.17

Logo Refinement

To further refine this extension, I’ve seperated the index finger from the ring finger completely to exagerate the jagged form in which the hand is drawn. Now I realize that the hand is detached from itself (ring and pinky), and elaborates the point of detachment. I think I can walk away from this now satisfied with myself and this work, as it’s resolved in its contextual and aesthetic forms.