Fabula closed on 15 June 2003. For details of our current exhibitions, take a look at our what’s on page.
A new generation of international artists brought a playful and subversive twist to the documentary image, blurring boundaries between fact and fiction to dramatic effect.
Fabula comprised series of photographs by Jeanne Faust, Sharon Yaari and Christopher Stewart, alongside video installations by Matt Hulse and Laure Prouvost.
In Fabula, these emerging photographers and video artists played havoc with the familiar world of the documentary image. They cheated expectations, introducing a host of rogue elements—from manipulation and play to outright fantasy—that forced viewers to question what they saw. Breaking through the documentary façade, Fabula presented alternative realities, unstable and highly subjective.
‘Fabula’ means ‘story’ or ‘fable’ in Latin, suggesting that the fabulous qualities of storytelling are always at work, even in the supposedly factual realm of the documentary.
Adding ingredients of fiction, artifice and absurdity, Fabula set out to re-enchant the world, taking the ordinary and making it strange.
