Essay Club 10: Tay Haggarty on Object Lessons

Note: Registrations open 10am Friday 30 October 2026. Everyone is welcome but space is limited—prompt registration is essential.

Join us at the IMA for our final Essay Club of 2026!

Hosted by Tay Haggarty we'll discuss Gordon Hall's 'Object Lessons: Thinking Gender Variance Through Minimalist Sculpture', an essay adapted from a presentation entitled 'Sexing Sculpture' delivered in 2013 at the Annual College Art Association Conference, New York.

Gordon Hall's text asks us to read minimalism against the grain and use its frameworks to change our broader perception of the world. They state, "If it is possible to learn from objects how to see bodies differently, can they teach us to see gender differently, to shift the way we perceive non-normative genders?”

Haggarty will relate this text back to their own curatorial and artistic practice, as well as speculate on expanded applications within the local Meanjin/Brisbane arts ecology.

Join us for drinks and a chat. The essay will be emailed upon registration.

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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), Amanda Bennetts (Artist), Madeline Brewer (Institute of Modern Art), Elena Dias-Jayasinha (Queensland Art Gallery), Holly Eddington (Milani Gallery), Jocelyn Flynn (UQ Art Museum), Tay Haggarty (Outer Space), Llewellyn Millhouse (Wreckers Artspace), and Holly Riding (State Library of Queensland).