"The immediate subject of History is not mine is censorship, broadening out into the underlying theme of fatmi's work - meaning and its deformation by power. His work is driven by the impossible desire to evade all forms of indoctrination. Across a wide range of media, fatmi attempts this through the construction of highly tactical visual spaces and linguistic games that identify and foreground the violent operations of the forces of capital, politics and religion to dominate thought and language. These aestheticized and elegantly seditious provocations are designed to generate skepticism and criticality.
The show's title plays on the title of a group exhibition, History is Mine staged last year in Toulouse in which a video work by fatmi, Technologia which combines verses of the Qu'ran with elements inspired by Duchamp's Rotoreliefs, was removed from display following violence and rioting from certain local elements in response to the work. Shortly after Paris's Institut du Monde Arabe removed Fatmi's video piece Sleep Al-Naim from an exhibition on Arabic creativity fearing the work would incite controversy. "