Fake News: Spin and Propaganda in Art throughout the Ages

Dr Geri Parlby is coming to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum on Wednesday 5 May, for a talk called Fake News: Spin and Propaganda in Art throughout the Ages. It's a long-view look at how images have been used to shape the story, starting way back in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, then moving through Rome, the Norman Conquest, Renaissance Italy, and Tudor England. From there, she takes it through the French Revolution, Georgian and Victorian Britain, on to the First and Second World Wars, and finally up to 21st-century graffiti.

It's a broad sweep, but that's the point: the same impulse to spin a narrative has been running through art for thousands of years. Parlby is interested in how images shape, and sometimes distort, our understanding of the past, and she'll be tracing that thread across a huge stretch of history. If you've ever wondered how a painting or a piece of public art was designed to make you think something specific about a ruler or a regime, this is exactly that.

Parlby herself comes to this from an unusual angle. She started as a journalist and film publicist before becoming an art historian, so she knows the world of spin from the inside. She's been an accredited Arts Society lecturer for 21 years, speaks across the UK and internationally, runs the Arts Society South West Area History of Art course, and is a former Chair of Tavistock Heritage Trust.

The talk runs from 2.30 to 3.30pm in Meeting Room A at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. Tickets are £8 for Friends and £10 standard.