Essay Club 4

Nicholas Aloisio-Shearer on The Vulgar Image

24 June 2026
6–8pm

  • Location:
    IMA Office
  • Event Cost:
    Free
  • Registration:

Note: Registrations open 10am Friday 29 May 2026. Everyone is welcome but space is limited—prompt registration is essential.

Join us at the IMA for Essay Club no. 4 with Nicholas Aloisio-Shearer.

We’ll discuss The Vulgar Image, an essay by Dean Kissick published for Spike Magazine’s Summer 2025 issue. The essay unpacks the proliferation of AI-slop to ask whether we are chasing machines into a pastiche hell.

Nicholas will discuss his work as Assistant Director at the IMA, as well as his projects as a curator and artist.

Join us for pizza and drinks.

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Reading group, meets salon, meets networking drinks. Join us at the IMA for Essay Club. Whether you’re a university student, emerging arts worker, artist, or someone who thinks critically about culture, there’s space at the table.

Each session, our well-read friends from the neighbourhood will select a text that’s shaping their ideas, conversations, and approaches to contemporary arts practice. We dig into the ideas together, with a focus on how global conversations might translate locally.

Your 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).

The Institute of Modern Art acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land upon which the IMA now stands, the Jagera, Yuggera, Yugarapul, and Turrbal people. We offer our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first artists of this country. In the spirit of allyship, the IMA will continue to work with First Nations people to celebrate, support, and present their immense past, present, and future contribution to artistic practice and cultural expression.

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