It's odd. Though I've spent years working with and creating images, I feel most comfortable expressing myself through writing. I'd been in denial about this for many years. At school I was highly lauded as having the potential to write one day, but being a typically rebellious and misguided teenager I opted to study art. Ironically language has pervaded all the work I have done - from my first forays into an art practice many years ago to my work with typography and book design.
Michael SaluI realize after spending so long working with images, semiotic deconstruction and redeployment becomes second nature. We all speak with images. I guess I look at everything sideways nowadays.
Michael SaluI'm interested in a lot of the languages that drive our culture. I'm interested in user experience as language or how societal malaise takes root.
Michael SaluI was keen to challenge this vernacular as the role of the photojournalist was changing, and images were becoming urgent and more succinctly linguistic. This is why I moved to publishing artists who were challenging the veracity of both the medium and the profession through their works.
Michael SaluYou may change your profile picture to Trayvon Martin or Eric Garner, but you will never actually walk the streets the way they have, or systematically had your vertebrae stunted. So you will not walk that shrouded walk unless you're on the inside and you can occasionally nod at another on the inside and that acknowledgement can carry you for a while as it won't come from the outside.
Michael SaluThrough panel moderations and talks around culture, politics and identity I gradually gained opportunities to write in my own voice and not that of the brand. I'm interested in a lot of the languages that drive our culture. I'm interested in user experience as language or how societal malaise takes root. So through essays and short stories I began exploring some of these things.
Michael Salu