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Speaker at 'Perspectives' at The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre in Adelaide: Unmaking Im


Perspectives, a new initiative developed by ACE Open, Guildhouse and The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, University of South Australia. This annual series of thought-provoking lectures invites leading artists, makers and thinkers to Adelaide to engage with the compelling ideas currently shaping our world.

Unmaking Images: Image-making and representation

In this lecture, Hoda Afshar discusses the connection between images and representation, and asks how the medium of photography might be used to untangle them. Retracing the history of her own practice, Afshar recounts how the camera has served her as a tool for exploring issues of identity and marginality, both as a documentary photographer in Iran, and as part of her visual-art practice after migrating to Australia.

Focussing on the themes and approach of her most recent series, ‘Behold’, recently shown at Melbourne’s Centre for Contemporary Photography, and ‘Remain’, made on Manus Island in collaboration with Berhouz Boochani and recently exhibited as part of the MCA’s Primavera 2018, Afshar explains how her concern to share the stories of others has necessarily overlapped with her questioning of the limits of image-making, all the while acknowledging its real potential to reshape how we see the world.

This lecture will conclude with a Q&A facilitated by Adelaide based independent curator and arts writer Rayleen Forester.

Perspectives: shaping the world through visual culture.

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