Aidan Zamiri highlights the importance of storytelling and working with singer-songwriter FKA twigs

“My name is Aidan Zamiri, it’s kind of a fake name,” the photographer-director quipped in the opening of his Nicer Tuesdays Talk. Why? It’s his grandmother’s maidan name, it’s easier to Google and, of course, sounds “a lot cooler”. An excellent introduction for an inspiring (and funny) presentation, Aidan closed the evening by proving his title as photographer-director through an outline of his work, which he said is “sometimes spooky, sometimes fashiony, sometimes blurry… And sometimes it’s a video, like Slow Thai next to a big shoe”. The previous CSM grad is clearly doing something right having worked with a host of musicians and brands to date. And, despite having studied graphic design before finding his feet in visual storytelling, he’s now solidified his craft as one that’s fuelled by creativity and narrative. “I’m trying to communicate an abstract thing as directly as possible.”

Next, Aidan showed us his latest project up on the big screen – a video mixtape named Caprisongs created for singer-songwriter FKA twigs. An “unusual project”, he said, the work came together in a short space of time with heck load of fast turnarounds. But having shown us the process and end result, it was certainly worth it. “Not only were we reacting to the context of the world, we also wanted to react to the context of Twigs’ career,” he said. “Before this, she’d really been posed as an ethereal, poetic goddess… although that’s a large part of her art, she felt like a large section of her personality wasn’t really being communicated. She’s a really funny and very real person.” Not only does Aidan’s talk present this side of Twigs wholeheartedly, he also revealed the care and collaboration that goes into a project like this. Witnessing the makings-of a large-but-small-scale project like this was an utter treat, to say the least.