Fab Rideti is a photographer and visual artist whose work challenges the boundaries between reality and fiction, between photography and plastic arts. Her approach is characterized by rigorous staging, meticulous attention to light and detail, and a rare ability to transform everyday life into images charged with tension and emotion.
As part of the 16th Issy Biennial, she presented her universe in the exhibition "Restless Water," where her images dialogue with the theme of water and fluidity. Her photographs explore human fragility and resilience, playing on suggestion, imagination, and the narrative power of images. Every element - pose, costume, setting, lighting - is conceived as a visual choreography, revealing the theatrical and sculptural dimension of her work.
Her series, such as "Naphta Tribes" and "Impermanence," demonstrate her ability to build coherent and sensitive worlds where the viewer's eye is both solicited and amazed. Empathetic and attentive to the nuances of the human gaze, Fab Rideti seeks to capture what escapes the obvious, to reveal beauty in what wavers, and to create images that persist in memory well beyond the simple photographic moment.
In an extensive interview, Rideti shared her artistic journey and philosophy. Her first photographic breakthrough came from a portrait of a homeless woman with "blue child-like eyes of infinite purity" early in her career. "She told me later that this photograph had changed her life, that it had decided her to take control again. I understood that day the impact of the observer, the power of photography," she explained.
When asked about her inspiration, Rideti cited Erwin Olaf for "his sense of detail, his elegance, his direction of actors, and this way of transforming beauty into dramatic tension. He composes like a director, he plays with colors masterfully." The image she would have liked to create is Gregory Crewdson's "Ophelia" because "it's frozen cinema, pure narration. My absolute dream. I admire this ability to direct light like a conductor, to choreograph the ordinary to make it overwhelming."
The most moving image for her remains "my first studio portrait of my teenage daughter. Her gaze mixing purity, strength, rage, confidence and doubt still touches me every time." Conversely, she expressed anger at "all photos that betray those who are trapped involuntarily."
A key image in her personal pantheon is "a magnificent posed portrait of my grandmother with my mother as a child, Harcourt style. Elegance of the pose, soft light, in an oval frame, perfect. It inspired me with the poses of the noble warriors in my Naphta Tribes series."
Regarding childhood memories, Rideti recalled "a box of old postcards found in the attic, with hundreds of colorized 1900 photos of women and children in costumes, with frozen postures, posing in front of painted backgrounds with illuminations and armfuls of flowers."
The image that obsesses her is "the one I haven't built yet. I feel it, I sense it. The first of my next series. It still escapes me... It will come when it's ready - or when I am." She believes the photograph that changed the world was "the photo of Aylan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian child who was found dead on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey. Because an image, sometimes, does more than witness: it forces us to look."
The photograph that changed her own world was "the first photo of my Impermanence series, where I conceived everything: decor, costume, lighting. The moment when I understood how I wanted to express myself through photography - between painting, plastic arts and theater. That's where I became, I believe, as much a visual artist as a photographer."
Without budget limits, she would dream of acquiring "a photograph by Erwin Olaf." According to her, the necessary quality to be a good photographer is "empathy - understanding in others what they have most powerful or most fragile and of which they are not aware, but also seeing the world with an awareness of the role we play in it."
The secret of the perfect image, if it exists, is that "we feel both control and accident in it." She would like to photograph "Ariane Mnouchkine, whose engaged gaze awakens consciences. Her abundant shows are the origin of my love of theater." She would like to be photographed by "Cindy Sherman. I admire her freedom of reinvention, her acid humor, her way of embodying the gaze rather than suffering it. I would like to see how she would reinvent me."
An essential photography book for her is "Twilight" by Gregory Crewdson because "each image is an enigma, a fragment of suspended narrative." Her childhood camera was "a Minolta X700 film camera received for my 18th birthday. It was nothing exceptional, but it taught me to look, to frame, to decide what I wanted to show." Today she uses "a Nikon D850."
Her preferred "drug" is "chiaroscuro. This moving border between beauty and strangeness." The best way for her to disconnect is to "create with my hands. Get lost in matter: sew a costume, paint a canvas, knead clay. The manual gesture brings me back to the concrete, to the present moment."
Regarding her relationship with images, she states: "It exists first to carry a message or tell a story. Only then do I try to make it a beautiful plastic object to engage the greatest number." Her greatest quality is "finding beauty in what wavers. And never stop believing in it."
Her latest folly was "going alone to the depths of the snowy forest with 3 bags of equipment, my flashes, a giant cardboard wizard costume, to be model, lighting technician, dresser and photographer all at once... and realizing after 40 minutes of walking that I had forgotten the camera tripod."
For a new banknote image, she would choose "a smile. Because Rideti - my artist name - means smile in Esperanto. And it's a universal value." The job she wouldn't have liked to do is "paparazzi." Her greatest professional extravagance was "building a life-size cabin alone in the middle of the forest with dozens of recycled cardboard boxes. Some make films, I build my images one by one, with the same stubbornness."
On photography's power to change collective perception, she believes "absolutely. An image can shake more than an hour-long speech." Regarding social media influence, she notes: "Networks have democratized photography, which is magnificent - but they have also shortened the lifespan of emotions. We scroll where we should contemplate. Fortunately, a strong image resists everything, even algorithms."
An Instagram account she recommends is "fondationtaraocean, because there's still time to save the oceans." The last thing she did for the first time was "trying to follow an alto score during my first choir session 10 days ago."
For Rideti, a successful photo is "one that pursues you. That disturbs or soothes, but is not forgotten." What interests her most in an image is "the unspoken. What we guess behind the smile, the light... the story we can finish ourselves."
Regarding the difference between photography and art photography, she explains: "Photography captures, art photography constructs. One seizes reality, the other magnifies it." Having traveled around the world twice, she dreams of discovering Berlin: "I've gone around the world twice... and I've never been to Berlin! It's high time."
The place she never tires of is "my husband's neck." She has "not many regrets, mostly desires." She prefers color over black and white "without hesitation" and artificial light over daylight, "especially outdoors like in my Naphta Tribes series. Because it says 'this is not what you think.'"
The most photogenic city according to her is "Havana. The setting is already weathered, the light is nostalgic, and every wall seems ready to speak." If God existed, she would ask him "to adjust the flash. It seems he has some experience with light."
For her ideal dinner, she would invite "Pierre Rabhi for meaning, Laurent Gaudé for words, Shakespeare for the scenario, Camille for emotion, and Blanche Gardin to refocus the debate." The image that represents the current state of the world for her is "a seed because there's always something left to invent."
If she had to start over, she would "do the same, but I wouldn't abandon piano at 15." Her final words: "Smile, always. It's my way of resisting the gravity of the world."
Fab Rideti participates in the exhibition "Restless Water" as part of the 16th Issy Biennial until November 9, 2025. Her work can be viewed at www.fabrideti.com and on Instagram @fab.rideti.
