Heather, Model 1, London, UK
from the series Fig., 2006
© ADAM BROOMBERG & OLIVER CHANARIN

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ADAM BROOMBERG and OLIVER CHANARIN are South African artists based in London. They started working together as art directors of Colors magazine, and have developed an international reputation, publishing a number of books, including Trust, Ghetto and Mr. Mkhize’s Portrait.

Fig. is a series of photographic connections which form not only an insightful comment on documentary photography, but how the medium itself can be both strangely absurd and completely relevant.

Fig. is constructed with 95 images (“figures”, hence the title Fig.) that are linked through short pieces of text. Each caption/text provides to the readers what most captions do — they reveal what the object is and in turn give a short explanation as to why the reader should be interested. Thus Fig. is really a book of words — words that can’t entirely be trusted as they take giant leaps to link each object. Their individual caption construction may be factual but their sequencing is pure fiction. – from the review of JEFF LADD via 5b4

The project has been published as a bookwork by Photoworks and Steidl in 2007 and is available in the WFW Store.