Inception: 1975–2001

Panel Discussion and Special Performance by Robert Forster

We invite you to join us for a series of public forums addressing the contributions the Institute for Modern Art has made to Queensland’s art ecology, reconnecting the institution with previous generations, and generating speculative visions for our future. 

The first session will animate the past. With hindsight, we ask how the IMA came into the world and faced its first twenty-five years. Old memories revived, archives disturbed, mythologies dismantled, and silenced narratives given voice.  

IMA Director Robert Leonard leads a conversation with Nancy Underhill, Malcom Enright, Michelle Helmrich, and Luke Roberts. 

Cap off the evening with a performance by Brisbane pop legend Robert Forster of The Go-Betweens, performing four songs from his new album Strawberries. 

This is a free, seated event. All welcome. Please RSVP to confirm your attendance. 

2025 marks fifty years since the Institute for Modern Art first opened its doors in Brisbane. For five decades, we’ve presented the latest contemporary art; connecting the local, national, and international, the established and the emergent; offering a hub for the art life in Brisbane. We have navigated the chops, changes, and paradigm shifts that have marked the art of our times. To celebrate our fiftieth anniversary, we are presenting three public forums. The first two excavate our past; the third imagines our future. Each will be followed by a performance.