A self-confessed 'picker' of memorabilia, James Allen was rummaging through old archives one day when he came across something shocking - postcards of US lynching scenes. Wondering who would take such images, and why anyone would send them to their friends and family, he started to collect these remnants of America's dark past. Without Sanctuary, as the collection became known, was first exhibited in 2000 at the the New York Historical Society, where it attracted large audiences and intense discussion. It's gone on to be shown across the US, and Autograph ABP is now showing it outside the States for the first time.

Depicting the lynchings which went on from 1880 to 1960, the images include disturbing scenes of violence and murder. The victims came from a wide variety of backgrounds but were mostly African American, and its estimated that as many as 5000 were killed between 1882-1968. Their often-mutilated bodies are captured in the images, which were turned into mass-produced postcards by what became a commercial industry. By 1900 lynching had become a form of mass entertainment, and the images in Without Sanctuary capture the excitement and vindication in the faces of the attendant crowds.

Without Sanctuary is now held by the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in the US, which is part of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and has also been published as a book by Twin Palms. The images are controversial, but the National Center for Civil and Human Rights argues that: "Although many would probably prefer to forget this chapter of American history, for African Americans and others, the decades-long nightmare of lynching - and continuing incidents of threatened violence and intimidation today - are all-too-real reminders that only a thin line separates the rule of law and guarantees of civil and human rights from lawless mob psychosis. Without Sanctuary is an opportunity to educate the public about the historic context of these injustices and their relevance to contemporary society."

Mark Sealy, director of Autograph ABP, has written a thoughtful essay on the images, the historical and cultural conditions which allowed them to be made and the reactions of contemporary audiences who see them. He writes "...in viewing the photographs in Without Sanctuary no one is innocent. We as voyeurs have the capacity to slide between the various perspectives offered in the images. Part of the guilt that these images evoke is that they reveal our capacity to seek pleasure in these photographs. What redeems them is that they also function as conduits that enable the contemporary viewer to have access to some of the stark historical conditions of systematic, institutional, racist violence."

Without Sanctuary is on show at Autograph ABP from 27 May - 30 July at Rivington Place, EC2A 3BA. Autograph is also showing a retrospective of Rotimi Fani-Kayode's work at the same time.