All the works in this exhibition address the production, dissolution, re-enactment and dissemination of historical identity. The ‘unhistorical’ is a notion of obscurity and limbo: figures who have transgressed the borders of the stream of history, and are short-circuiting it, cross-wiring, hijacking, or simply living outside of the fixed historicised frame of identity. It is in one way a form of disappearance but in another way a liberation and an active process – for Nietzsche, the ‘unhistorical’ is a way forward, a casting off of the shackles of historical existence. It is a sort of forgetting, a change of focus from what has been done to what must be done. The power to unhinge identity and take control in the image is a theme in all the works gathered together in this show.
