The Image Complex: Photography, Vision, and Belief in South Asia

We live with and through images. For nearly two centuries, they have shaped our relationship to truth, belief, evidence, and each other — and we have, mostly, trusted them.

The Image Complex is an eight-session online lecture series that explores how that trust was built, how it operates, and what it means to inhabit a world where it is coming undone. Moving from the colonial archives of the 19th century to contemporary image cultures, the series traces photography’s evolving role as an instrument of power, a container of memory, a medium of community, and — increasingly — a site of suspicion.

Grounded in photographic histories and practices across South Asia, these sessions bring together scholars, photographers, editors, curators, and archivists to ask: Who have photographs historically served, and who decides what they are permitted to reveal and exclude? How do images circulate through newspapers, family albums, archives, exhibitions, messaging platforms, and social media, accumulating new meanings with every encounter? And what happens when images themselves become unstable communicators — automated, manipulated, remixed, and untethered from their subjects — reshaping our relationship to them?

This series begins on August 18, 2026. You can use your login credentials to enter this platform at any point, and can introduce yourself to fellow learners in the Discussion Forum.

About the Facilitators

Aastha D is a critic, educator, and curator working across architecture, culture, and art. She is the founding editor of Proseterity, an independent international literary arts magazine. She has a background in architecture and an MS in Critical, Curatorial, Conceptual Practices from Columbia University GSAPP, New York.

Impart is an online platform encouraging greater engagement with South Asia’s art and cultural histories. We build inclusive and free resources for people to better access these histories, and believe that the story of art across the region should be presented in a comprehensive and nuanced way. Our work includes an Encyclopedia of Art, online learning resources, a digital publication, and collaborative projects.

Schedule

Through eight 90-minute sessions held twice a week, online via Zoom, this series approaches themes, ideas, practices, and perspectives in ways that speak to learners across backgrounds, regardless of prior knowledge of the subjects.

If you have any inquiries or need assistance, please write to us at [email protected]. Browse our online courses and other offerings here.