Look! - Fabula at Hove Museum

Our Fabula exhibition at Hove Museum starts soon...Three rooms of Fabula Collective art work and work from our guest artist Joe Evans: including 3D installations, 2D illustration, Puppets, Books, Model making and films. Inspired by fairytales, theatre, Brighton and Hove's history of filmmaking, memories, the concept of inside and out and more. All are welcome, come along and enjoy the show. Open to the public from 2nd December, admission is free. 

*update! - exhibition has been extended to the 9th May*!

Alongside the exhibition there is an exciting programme of events....

We hope to see you at the museum!

Happy Birthday to Fabula!

Today is a sort of birthday for us - Happy Birthday Fabula!

In September 2014 we formed our collective. After group discussion we decided on our name and two years ago today, we made ourselves public and joined Facebook! Since then we have been involved in nine shows and illustration events. Three have been solo exhibitions, one in the UK and two in China and we had a further overseas event when we took part in an illustration fair in Korea - thanks to our brilliant overseas members!

We're excited!

We've got twenty-one members now and we're currently planning our most exciting exhibition so far at Hove Museum (thanks to The Royal Pavilion & Museums) where we will be showing our work from December 3rd until April 2017. As well as showing work by sixteen individual members there will be collaborative work in progress inspired by myths and fairy tales called The Story Cabinet. 

Guest Artist

We are also pleased and excited to let you know that the very talented Joe Evans will be joining with us and showing his work as a guest artist. 

It's going to be an interesting exhibition including workshops planned over the course of the show for the public to take part in - details to follow. We do hope you will come.

Our story making collaboration - The Story Cabinet - shh!

Right, here is a little visual taster to get you in the mood.

It's very much work in progress and so it's hard to say exactly what the finished piece will be. In a way, we don't want to spoil the surprise: however, we're going to tell you a little bit about it now and more to come later.

What it will have are some well-known stories woven into the finished piece and it's very likely that you will see some influences from Hove Museum's collection.

One certainty is our intended audience  - we are making it to appeal to families.  Another is that the combination of us all working together will result in something that wouldn't be possible for any of us on our own. This work may end up described in many ways once it is finished. We're thinking it will be exciting, beautiful, mysterious, educational, interesting and fun - but we are biased and we couldn't possibly specify how and why just yet!

We'd love to tell you more but you'll just have to wait for further posts!

You can see for yourself how our work is developing on selected Mondays until December because The Royal Pavilion & Museums have agreed to have us as artists in residence at Hove Museum. The next one will be in August - and i'll post the date in advance here.

Hove Museum - a place that inspires us to make art and stories...

...an ideal opportunity for Fabula!

In case you didn't see our first post - thanks to The Royal Pavilion & Museums this is where we are having our residency and producing work towards a family friendly exhibition and events to be held at the museum in December - we will be posting regularly about it all here.

Next Monday 18th July we will be at the museum again - we are a very friendly bunch and we'd love for you to come and talk to us and see what we are doing.

Here is a taster of what happened last time Fabula artists met to 'make' together at the Museum. 

This is Richard Clarke's work - these are explorations of ideas for a landscape towards a collaborative piece we are all working on. Richard Clarke is a multi-award winning Filmmaker and Designer. His works are considered to be a humorous and magical exploration of the human psyche. 

Here you can see the materials that Dagmara Rudkin has bought to the museum to work from. Dagmara's usual practice crosses the boundaries of Fine Art, Design and Craft. In her recently completed MA she used animations, paintings, illustrations and puppetry performance to tell a cautionary tale for children.

 

Katie Perret is working out some ideas here.  Katie is a photographer who uses analogue photography and her work is concerned with the quiet act of looking and perceiving.

Each artist uses their preferred working method - drawing, writing, photographs, prints or constructing maquettes to build upon their ideas towards finished pieces. 

Here you can see that we are using photographs that we have taken of artefacts from the museum's permanent collection to work from for inspiration. Louise Wishart is using her sketch book to develop her ideas. Lou uses a mixture of watercolour and dyes alongside hand printed tissue papers that she makes herself. She then scans them and manipulates them in Photoshop. Lou's work is concerned with capturing the interesting, everyday, quirky bits of ordinary life.  She is planning to illustrate the museums permanent collection in a short book to be exhibited in the December exhibition - we're looking forward to seeing that!

Dagmara uses delicate tissue paper here in her working process.

If you'd like more information about Fabula artists (we are a big group!) please go to  www.fabulacollective.com

It's very special to have the support of the local museums because, although we have many overseas members, we are a Brighton-based art collective, formed here in 2014. Having the time and space to work at Hove Museum, surrounded by so much to capture our imaginations is very timely for us as a collective.

We're excited by the chance to connect with the local public through the residency so do come and see us next Monday 18th July -  or on on selected Mondays (check this blog)  until December.

A little look back - Fabula at Phoenix Gallery - exhibition wins an award

In May and June we were pleased to exhibit at The Phoenix Gallery in Brighton as part of the 'Press & Release 2016' bookarts exhibition. We were thrilled to hear that the exhibition, curated by Maddy Rosenberg and designed by Curious Space, was the
winner of the Brighton Fringe Visual Arts Award 2016. We'd like to thank Phoenix Gallery for inviting us to be part of this exciting exhibition and congratulate them on winning the award.

The north gallery had an amazing exhibition of international book artists curated by Maddy Rosenberg.  The work was displayed impressively on structures designed by Curious Space and built by Ben Thomson.

Our work was exhibited with Sussex Bookarts Collective in the South Gallery in a display called 'Stories about Stories' - definitely what we're about! Also we took part in the table top book event 'Connect and Collect' and Fabula members Vanessa Marr and Pip Carter ran a workshop making handmade books.

Photos below show a cabinet of examples of our work that gave a flavour of Fabula.  The cabinet contained picture books, small models and books made to show working process, single images in sequence, narrative textiles, handmade books and short stories. There was also a chance to see films made by the five film makers in Fabula who also had their films on show throughout the exhibition.

The images below show the workshop led by Vanessa Marr and Pip Carter and some examples of books made.  This was part of the 'Connect and Collect' event. It was a lively but relaxed space where members of the public had a chance to have a go at making handmade books.

We were part of a tabletop exhibition during the 'Connect and Collect' event and all of our books were on display.

Looking forward to the next exhibition, coming soon - watch this space!
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Fabula in Residency!

Here's some great news! - thanks to The Royal Pavilion & Museums we are having a Residency at Hove Museum and we started this week!

We will now be at Hove Museum on a regular basis in preparation for an exhibition at the museum in December. Fabula artists Dagmara Rudkin, Juliette Rajak and Katie Perret got stuck in straight away finding inspiration from the museum's collection of toys.

We are very excited to have this fantastic opportunity. On certain Mondays, up until the start of the exhibition in December, we will be creating work for the show - working on a collaborative project as well as our own individual work.  We'll let you know when we'll be there as we go along and we hope you'll come down and see what we're up to. We'll also tell you more about the residency and the forthcoming exhibition here over the next few months.  All we can say for now is  - there will be lots of variety, it will be story-based, we will be producing work influenced by the museum's collection and there will be something for the whole family to enjoy.

 

Fabula in China!

Hurrah!  Fabula Collective’s very first exhibition in China - “Wake Up Your Life With Illustrations”- has been open for 1 month in Zheng Zhou. The opening was on Oct 11^th.

 The exhibitors are Clara Wei Fu, Louise Dennis, Jay Eunji Lee, Nele    Anders, Madeleine Swift, Yoona Lee, Emmi Smid, Nancy Yang and Yuki Yuxian Wu.

30 pieces of artwork are displayed in this show, including illustrations, photographs and animations. All the visitors were welcome to read our picture books and buy artwork.

Thanks to Tomato Lab and the Paper Time Bookstore for so nicely organising the technical stuff and offering such a wonderful exhibition venue.    

Fabula members Yuki and Nancy gave a short speech to briefly introduce Fabula to the visitors and explain what we do.

In order to represent the importance a story plays in an illustration, Yuki and Nancy designed a simple story solitaire game and guided the audience to retell “The Three Little Pigs”!
 
The audience paid close attention to the game.

Eventually, the original story was unexpectedly switched to a funny love story! What a surprise! Everyone in the exhibition couldn't stop laughing!

There were more than 80 visitors at the opening, including local illustrators and designers who shared their stories with us.

After the opening, we asked the visitors to fill out a questionnaire and give us some feedback. From those received questionnaires, it showed that most of the visitors were very interested in the work and were looking forward to seeing more from Fabula Collective.

Some of the visitors asked when the next exhibition of Fabula Collective in China would be. Well, we will see and let you know as soon as possible.

Written by Nancy Yang

Fabula @ The Jubilee Library in Brighton

A little look back to our first exhibition as Fabula Collective at the Brighton Jubilee Library in January 2015!

It was a great success - there were lots of interested visitors every day. What better place is there for us to be than amongst all those books and readers?! 

Twelve fabulous artists exhibited their books and prints from them, seventeen books on show altogether - including children's picture books, poetry, graphic novels and a book aimed at adults about memories of a childhood holiday.

At the private view one could eat an art work in the form of a printed 'Fabula' cupcake made by fantastic Fabula member Ruby Hermon - delicious!

The library events team have asked if they could use images of our show for their publicity - we have to agree, it did look rather good!

Fabula @ Hifest

Hi Hifest visitors and Fabula supporters!

Fabula needed a bit of time to let Hifest sink in!
Quentin Blake, John Vernon Lord, Ben Newman (Nowbrow), Alexis Deacon, Amber Hsu, Tiny Pencil, Wrap, Ohh Deer, John Bond, Rob Ryan dj'ing, we took part in a drawing workshop organised by Sarah Maycock - it was a lot to take in!
By the way, did we mention that we met Quentin Blake?? Hero!

Big thanks to the organisers! Hope to see everyone again next year!

Coming up next:

Fabula Collective @ Jubilee Library in Brighton, 10 - 18th January 2015. Watch this space!

Love,
Fab.

Who'd have thought Rob Ryan is also a DJ? 

Fabula Collective and John Vernon Lord

Quentin Blake meets Fabula Collective!

Art Junky @ The Phoenix Gallery in Brighton

Well, it is official: Fabula is active! We just did our first event this weekend: Art Junky at the Phoenix Gallery in Brighton. Thanks everyone who came to support us! Here's some pics for a quick impression.

Look at that poster! We are proud. Big thanks to Aim for the design!

Missed us at Art Junky? Come say hi at Hifest in Hastings!

Hifest: 6th December 2014
http://www.hifest.co.uk
The Atrium,
Station Plaza
Station Approach
Hastings
East Sussex
TN34 1BA

Fabula means Business!

We are so on a role! We're preparing for Art Junky @Phoenixbrighton and Hifest in Hastings: Business cards have arrived, posters& logo's are being designed and new artwork is being produced!

Write these events and dates in your diaries peeps:

Art Junky: 29 - 30th November 2014, 11am-5pm
http://www.phoenixbrighton.org/events-phoenix/
Phoenix Gallery
10-14 Waterloo Place
Brighton
E Sussex
BN2 9NB

Hifest: 6th December 2014
http://www.hifest.co.uk
The Atrium,
Station Plaza
Station Approach
Hastings
East Sussex
TN34 1BA

Hope to see you there!
Love, 
Fab.