Fables | SWANFALL ART ANNUAL EXHIBITION 2025
26 - 31 August 2025｜Mall Galleries, London
“Narrative is the way we organise reality.” - Edward Said
SWANFALL ART returns to Mall Galleries, London in August 2025 with its annual exhibition. Titled Fables, the show explores how narrative functions as a method in contemporary art, reflecting a broader shift from expression to resonance.
Art’s power lies not merely in representation, but in transformation - in awakening perception, forging connection, and revealing essence. It renders the abstract perceptible and gives structure to the ineffable.
As global uncertainty persists, so too does a quiet exhaustion with formalism and aesthetic detachment - a shift increasingly felt across artistic discourse. The experience of art is moving away from self-expression and toward emotional and intellectual resonance. Viewers and collectors are turning their attention to conceptual depth and affective power over technical virtuosity or stylistic novelty. This turn reflects a deeper, often unconscious, collective longing for memory, identity, and shared experience.
Story remains a vital way we organise time, understand change, and locate ourselves in the world. Narrative is being redefined - not simply as storytelling, but as a structural and perceptual framework. Contemporary works often avoid singular viewpoints or linear conclusions, instead inviting open-ended interpretation.
This year's annual exhibition is a response to this shift - from explanation to insight, from statement to shared experience. The theme is not a return to moralistic fables, but an invitation for artists to explore emotional depth and narrative complexity across mediums. We welcome work across all media - painting, installation, moving image, text, sound, performance. We are drawn to works that generate rhythm, provoke thought, and activate the space between feeling and idea - pieces that may resist explanation, yet resonate deeply in the silent structure between image and idea, gesture and memory.
THE OPEN CALL
Submissions are now closed. Exhibition opening soon.
MALL GALLERIES
Following the success of our 2023 annual exhibition Through the Looking Glass at Mall Galleries, SWANFALL ART returns in 2025 to present its latest edition
Located between Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square, adjacent to St. James’s Park, Mall Galleries sits at the heart of London’s cultural and artistic district. As one of the UK’s most prominent exhibition venues, it provides an exceptional setting and cultural context for this significant showcase
Mall Galleries is managed and operated by the Federation of British Artists (FBA), an organisation dedicated to advancing professional art practice and public cultural engagement. Over the past five decades, Mall Galleri
es has hosted major exhibitions for royal art societies and continues to present a dynamic programme of art fairs, auctions, solo and group exhibitions. With over 450 square metres of elegant exhibition space and state-of-the-art facilities, it offers an ideal platform for presenting contemporary artworks
Curated and organised by Swanfall Art with professional support from the Federation of British Artists, the 2025 exhibition is expected to feature approximately 300 works by contemporary artists
ABOUT US
SWANFALL ART is the curatorial and artist development division of SWANFALL, a London-based contemporary art platform dedicated to curatorial production, artist representation, art advisory, and secondary market transactions. Our core mission is to foster an open, diverse, and transnational platform that supports intellectually rigorous and experimentally driven artistic practices
As the commercial exhibitions branch of SWANFALL, SWANFALL GALLERY represents a select roster of artists and presents their work through international art fairs and private sales. The synergy between curatorial vision and market structure enables us to enhance academic visibility while supporting the sustainable growth of our artists’ careers
By integrating curatorial strategy with a commercial framework, SWANFALL offers a comprehensive support system, committed to building bridges between cultural value and market potential - expanding the possibilities for contemporary art creation and public engagement
