Join us for Essay Club 2 with Llewellyn Millhouse. We’ll discuss ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ by Laura Mulvey (1975). This seminal feminist text introduced the concept of the ‘male gaze’ and used psychoanalytic theory to argue that classic cinema is structured around male voyeurism and passive femininity. Millhouse will discuss the influence of Mulvey’s text on his work as an artist and the continued relevance of Mulvey’s thesis fifty years after its publication. After reflecting on the text, Millhouse will facilitate a more general discussion on artist-run spaces, working as an artist, and institutional arts work.

•

Reading group, meets salon, meets networking drinks. Whether you’re a university student, emerging arts worker, artist, or just someone who thinks critically about art and culture, there’s space at the table. For each session of Essay Club, one of our well-read neighbourhood friends selects a text that’s shaping their thinking, conversations, and approaches to contemporary art. We dig into the ideas together, with a focus on how global conversations translate locally. Essay Club hosts for 2026 include Nicholas Aloisio-Shearer (Institute of Modern Art), Holly Anderson (artist), Madeline Brewer (Institute of Modern Art), Elena Dias-Jayasinha (Museum of Brisbane), Holly Eddington (Milani Gallery), Jocelyn Flynn (UQ Art Museum), Tay Haggarty (Outer Space), Llewellyn Millhouse (Wreckers Artspace), and Holly Riding (State Library of Queensland).