The Institute of Modern Art (IMA), in partnership with the University of Queensland School of Communication and Arts, presents a talk by Australian photography historian Geoffrey Batchen exploring the relationship between sight and blindness in the history of photography.
The talk examines a contemporary Instagram trend in which celebrities pose with their eyes closed, considering whether this seemingly casual gesture is actually a deliberate and prescribed form of self-presentation.
Batchen will explore what this phenomenon reveals about photography and how the desire to be seen while appearing not to see can be understood within the history of the medium, from 1839 to the present.
Dates: Saturday 24 October 2026, 2pm–4pm
Geoffrey Batchen is Professor Emeritus of History of Art at the University of Oxford. His recent books include Inventing Photography: William Henry Fox Talbot in the Bodleian Library, The Forms of Nameless Things and Negative/Positive: A History of Photography. He has curated exhibitions in Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Iceland and Japan.
