As a cultural strategist my creative studio practice sits at the crossroads of semiotics & personal mythology. In this work I explore life’s tensions & themes through visual codes found in everyday objects such as: ⏳(life/ death), 🚪(portal/ passageway), 🕳(shadow/ unknown), 🌳(fertility/ family), etc.
More background... With a professional expertise rooted in unlocking cultural insight for brands—I use this non-commercial studio practice to explore both slow & fast visual-reads of life’s major questions and topics. Overall, my approach is rooted in materialist filmmaking, graphic communication and lo-fi processes. The work includes distilled marks, drawings, animated loops as well as slide projection and film. The cross-media portfolio is reflective of my career as a design generalist and is informed by my academic background in design (MFA), theatre & psychology (BA). Here I reject the slick, the tech, and the ‘more, more more’ in order to capture ideas with raw imperfection & nuance. Work that retains it’s physical history and snapshots the sensations of that moment is a success. My production kit mostly made-up of a combo of simple materials in day-glo pallate that fit on or around a table-top (paper, sand, sculpy, pen, ink, rosolux gels, household objects). What I am up to... In my 9-5 I’ve worked for the past decade as visual designer and brand strategist in some of NYC’s top boutique brand consulting agencies. I am currently acting as Head of Storytelling at a privately owned Manhattan-based research agency. In the past I have also worked on noteable Innovation Teams such as Sylvain, ?What If! Innovation Partners, as well as a contract partner with Gemic, and Further & Further.
Recently, I was accepted into MFA programs at both CalArts & USC for Experimental Animation. While I turned down these acceptances— it gave me just the right push to generate more opportunities to strengthen my independant creative practice. Since then I have completed my first stop-motion short film and am actively seeking residency opportunities to showcase my newest in-progress project: A multi-image slide show (more info here).
Currently, I am based in the southern-east coast in a sleepy beach town where I am practicing becoming a beach person, enjoying family, doing bikhram yoga, and learning to “yes-and” via long-form improv.
Hope you enjoy some things you see here and thanks for checking out the work!
👋 Alexandria (aka ‘zanda’)