The Question Artist

In the age of image-propelled social media, Zain Ali's photo essays bring a fresh sense of timing, framing, and narrative on how male intimacy is communicated, discovers SHWETA SHIWARE

- SHWETA SHIWARE

POSING A QUESTION London-based Pakistani photographer Ali takes to the camera's lens to highlight cultural nuances in self-portraits. Visual storytelling, he says, makes up his love language

WHEN ZAIN ALI was asked what he hoped to achieve with his visual curation of people, he said simply, “To tell a story.” It’s an uncommonly modest goal, but one that helps explain the quiet, probing quality of composition and content found on his Instagram gallery. Ali records nuances of everyday life, of quotidian experiences, and puts them down into a labyrinth of vignettes that pierces the façade of masculinity. “I feel visual storytelling creates space for everybody while allowing the artist to express their power and vulnerability without spelling it out,” explains the British-Pakistani multidisciplinary artist in a video interview.

Ali, 29, is something of a multi-hyphenate personality. He is a photographer, art director and the founder of the label Znali—the January cover of British