The Story Cabinet Update

We thought we'd show you a bit more about The Story Cabinet because it's been a while since we did! 

Many of us are involved in this project but, typically, we don't want show you everything at once, so today we are going to focus only on the work of one Fabula artist. This is the work of Katherine Perret who is a photographer. 

Last time she was at Hove Museum Katherine used her time to try layering some of her images, using photography and drawing of trees representing a forest. 

Putting them in the window allowed the light to shine through the tracing paper to show up the layers. The idea for the Story Cabinet is that we will use lighting behind or in the cabinet to achieve a similar affect. 

As a photographer this project has pushed Katherine right out of her comfort zone and has forced her into experimenting using traditional photography and mixing it with other media, different papers and drawing. The idea is that Katherine's work will fit around some of the more character-based work in the group and add background and atmosphere to the project as a whole.

The Story Cabinet project is based around fairytales and myths but instead of basing her research around a specific fairytale, interestingly, Katie has decided to investigate them as a whole. She began to see the Forest as a character in itself as it is used in many fairytales/myths from around the world, ie. Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Rama and Sita, Baba Yaga even traditional stories like Robin Hood and Wind in the Willows.

She is interested in the differing aspects of this 'character'. The Enchanted Forest, the refuge or sanctuary verses the Deep Dark Wood that is full of evil spirits and things that want to get you.

   "Entering the Dark Forest is a threshold symbol: the soul entering the perils of the unknown; the realm of death; the secrets of nature, or the spiritual world which man must penetrate to find meaning." 

                      An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols, J C Cooper. 

Well, that's the update!  We hope that you will come down to Hove Museum to see for yourself what we are doing. The next time that Fabula will be at Hove Museum on residency (thanks to The Royal Pavilion & Museums) will be in September and we will post the date in advance here. See you soon!

Katherine Perret is is a photographer with a passion for the use of analogue film. Her work is often set in the garden or the wider landscape in which she finds herself. She has a BA in Photographic Art and an MA in Sequential design/Illustration from The University of Brighton where she became interested in book design. Her final MA piece was a photographic exploration of 'place' culminating in four hand bound books. Fundamentally her work is about the quiet act of looking and perceiving, observing the usually unobserved spaces. Capturing the light of this space on the negative and weaving these images together to form narratives. 

To see more of Katherine's work please go to www.fabulacollective.com