Seduced by Story

Group exhibition
Frederik Exner, Pétrel I Roumagnac (duo), Leomi Sadler, Beatrice Vorster, Yue Yuan
SIRA, Asnières-sur-Seine
10 October—16 November 2025

"Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. But both are sensitive. [...] If at moments the facts seem to alter with an altered voice, why then you can choose the fact you like best; yet none of them is false, and it is all one story.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, London, Penguin Books, 1992, p. 1.

Telling is not living; yet we rely on narrative to convey what happened. Indeed, narration is not a mere distortion, but a way of knowing: as Peter Brooks observes in his eponymous essay, raw facts gain meaning only once they are shaped into narrative. The danger lies in the seduction of the effect of truth—often more valued than truth itself—especially when history shows that to control storytelling is to control reality. And at a time when conspiracy theories and truth claims are cloaked in the aesthetics and rhetoric of evidence, Seduced by Story asks: what kind of truth can fiction contain? What forms of power does narrative enable—or resist? And finally, what are the implications for the image, so often said to ‘tell stories’—particularly photography, of which Susan Sontag writes in Regarding the Pain of Others that it ‘has only one language and is destined potentially for all’: doesn’t it mystify more than it reveals?

The artworks brought together in this exhibition question the pacts of belief that narratives propose, as well as the mechanisms through which regimes of fiction shape perception and interpretation, both on personal and collective levels, and influence how we connect to reality.

Curated by Margaux Gillet & Estelle Marois

Set design: Grégoire Borach

Installation views

Yue Yuan, A Dream, scan from the book 1982, Janine, London, Jonathan Cape, first edition (1984), wallpaper, 2025

Beatrice Vorster & Yasmin Vardi, Some sweat on her brow, projected film still, 2024

Beatrice Vorster, big feelings, audio, 36 mins, 2025

Leomi Sadler, from left to right: Retail Tower, acrylic, solvent inks, various other inks, 2020; Drive to Retail Park, dye-based aquarelle, solvent inks, various other inks, 2021; Tragic Potential, solvent inks, biro, Tipp-Ex, 2025; Present Box, 2024-2025; Treasure In Plain Sight, 2021; Furniture Puzzle, 2020; Worm Cherries, solvent inks, various other inks, 2021; Sour Puzzle, 2020

Pétrel I Roumagnac (duo), from the Ekumen, photoscenic piece no. 3, Scenes 8 (Worlds), mixed media, direct print on sun-thermoformed film, 2023

Frederik Exner, Ansekt I, Ansekt II, hand-carved PU foam, acrylic resin, aluminum coating, varnish, anodised aluminium, foam, 2025