18 – 20 February 2026

FRAGILE IMAGES fundamentally challenges
the dominant notion of images as powerful
actors. It moves away from the focus on the
affective, persuasive, performative, and
immersive image and instead focuses on its
temporal instability, semantic ambiguity, and
ontological self-reflexivity.
The conference will draw on ancient rhetoric
and imagery in order to analyse the semantic
functions of ambiguity. Its focus will be on
polyvalent images in periods of political, social
or religious transition such as Late Antiquity in
order to understand the extent to which open
images are used to navigate between
competing and concurrent interests and
worldviews.

https://www.uni-kiel.de/fileadmin/user_upload/mandanten/klassische-archaeologie/Forschung/ERC/Dateien_ERC/ERC_7Final_program.pdf