Essay Club 4 Nicholas Aloisio-Shearer on The Vulgar Image

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).