Meet our graduate collaborative who put their hearts into art

We are Fabula Collective – a multidisciplinary group of 21 artists – all alumni from the Sequential Design/Illustration MA and the Arts and Design by Independent Project MA courses at the University of Brighton. We are currently holding our biggest exhibition yet at Hove Museum and so we would like to tell you more about that and about how we came to form our collective.

 

The exhibition Many Ways To Tell A Story shows work from 17 artists on a variety of themes – something for all ages – including films, books, illustrations and installation. Fabula is joined by guest artist Joe Evans who also graduated with an MA from Brighton. Also on show is The Story Cabinet – our collaborative piece based on fairy tales. Many of the exhibits are interactive with torches provided to increase your viewing enjoyment. The show is curated by Julia Basnett and follows on from our residency at Hove Museum. With its collections of toys, crafts and Brighton & Hove film-making memorabilia, this museum is a place full of stories and that makes it a great venue for our work. We have been running art workshops and storytelling events too – the next one is on 28 January. Hove is not far away – we hope you will come and see it all!

About Fabula
After our studying was finished, we could have all gone our separate ways. However, our MA study had been a rich learning experience – in many ways that we might not have expected. The community, skill sharing and collaborations enabled by our tutors had been a big and important part of it and we wanted to develop that further. Extending the old adage ‘two heads are better than one’ we met in a café in 2014 and now we have 21 members! As individuals, we work in many disciplines but what unites us is a desire to tell stories in as many ways as we possibly can. Being in a collective means we can share skills, opportunities, ideas and costs and we can support each other with the many issues that arise from being self-employed artists.

We are an international group based in Brighton with members in Korea, China, Germany and Thailand. Our name Fabula is a term originating from the study of narratives. A narrative or story is any report of connected events, real or imaginary, presented in a sequence of written or spoken words and/or still or moving images or objects. We aim to find as many ways as we can to connect with others through our narrative art and so far this has been through exhibitions, illustration fairs, collaborations and creative workshops.

Our brilliant overseas members have enabled us to have two solo exhibitions in China and we took part in the SIF illustration fair in Korea. Last year we were pleased to be part of an award-winning exhibition at the Phoenix Gallery and (did we mention?!) we are currently exhibiting at Hove Museum – our tenth and biggest event so far!

Please see our website and blog for more info and check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

• Somin Ahn
• Nele Anders
• Pip Carter
• Penelope Chong
• Richard Clarke
• Louise Dennis
• Jay Eunji Lee
• Ruby Hermon
• Supakawadee Khoowatanataworn
• Jo Lawes
• Yoona Lee
• Vanessa Marr
• Katherine Perret
• Juliette Rajak
• Dagmara Rudkin
• Emmi Smid
• Madeleine Swift
• Clare Wei Fu
• Louise Wishart
• Nancy Yang
• Yuki Wu