The Fictional: Rewriting Reality (London, 2026)
In 2024, I began The Fictional—a photographic inquiry into the fragile boundary between truth and illusion. Inspired in part by
The Peripheral, the series explored how power persists through architecture, symbolism, and narrative, even as reality itself fractures.
Now, in 2026, I return to the same terrain with Aeon Rose—not to repeat, but to revise.
Walking again through the City of London, I encounter familiar facades that feel subtly altered. These structures—monuments of permanence—still stand with quiet authority. Yet something has shifted. Perhaps it is not the city that has changed, but the lens through which I see it.
The new images are less about observation and more about confrontation. They question not only what is real, but who defines reality. In a world where narratives compete and truth dissolves into interpretation, the act of photographing becomes an act of resistance—a way of fixing a moment that refuses to stay fixed.
Working again with Aeon Rose introduced a renewed dialogue between image and text. Together, we revisited the original questions: What survives collapse? What remains unquestioned? And why do certain symbols of power endure, even when belief in them erodes?
This revision is not an answer but a continuation. A layering. A deeper incision into the surface of things.
The Fictional – Revision 2026 is not about returning to the same place. It is about discovering that the place was never the same to begin with.
— Monika K. Adler, London, 2026.
