amir safwan zamri

Inspired by Johann Vogel’s book of emblems, Meditationes emblematicae de restaurata pace Germaniae, I often work with images as mediums for self-expression and moral agent. My current interests include understanding Syrian civil war, applying and manipulating self-consciousness theory into writing and photography, and examining the conflict of faith and homosexuality. I believe that the right question to ask is not “Can someone be gay and religious at the same time?” but “Can someone be religious and ignore the poor, refugees and homeless at the same time?”

As a non-practicing storyteller, I believe that visual literacy is a vital skill to survive in our current cultural context where our minds are presented with still and moving images too frequently than ever before. Images are used to promote ideologies, propaganda, principles and beliefs by politicians, environmentalists, economists, entertainers and religion-extremists. Visual literacy is a skill that needs to be mastered in the war against the fallacy of sunk-cost, illusory peace of mind and blind faiths.