History paintings

In this series of works Cameron Bishop has concentrated on three types of space: the zoo, museum and the art gallery. Envisaged as heterotopias (from the combined Greek literally meaning other spaces), the three spaces are where time, represented in stratified objects, never stops accumulating. They are spaces of display in which objects are classified and arranged according to various needs: scientific, educational or historical. The philosopher Michel Foucault discusses how all cultures create heterotopias against which their “real sites” become unambiguous, clarified and legitimated. It is alongside these institutions that we emerge as subjects; that we come to place ourselves in a narrative and learn who we are and who we are not. By questioning the spaces with which we historicize ourselves and others, identify ourselves and others, and construct our very humanity with Cameron Bishop not only speaks of the fictions we create in our own real lives, outside the exhibition space, but those created on behalf of others.