October 01 - 02, 2026

Nanyang Technological University
Singapore, Singapore

Description

Welcome to the micro-site for the Seventeenth International Conference on The Image. 

Founded in 2010, The Image Research Network is brought together around a shared interest in the nature and function of image-making and images. We seek to build an epistemic community where we can make linkages across disciplinary, geographic, and cultural boundaries. As a Research Network, we are defined by our scope and concerns and motivated to build strategies for action framed by our shared themes and tensions.

The Seventeenth International Conference on The Image calls for research addressing the following annual themes and special focus:

• 2026 Special Focus—The Image as Advocate: Shaping Cultural Conversations
• Theme 1: The Form of the Image
• Theme 2: Image Work
• Theme 3: The Image in Society 
• Theme 4: Creative and Cultural Technologies
• Theme 5: Ordinary Practice and Collective Behaviors

We are interested in the following lines of investigation: 

• The foundations of our species-being and the narratives of species history are marked by imagery—the parietal, megalithic art and body art of first peoples, the iconography and symbology of religions, the graphic-representational roots of writing.
• The image has several key properties, of interest to the participants in this research network.

The Image Research Network also supports a book imprint and a collection of journals.