The ‘panorama’ began as a nineteenth-century visual entertainment presenting illusionistic landscapes in wide-screen formats. It is now seen as one of the antecedents of cinema, Imax, QuickTime VR, and other twentieth-century visual technologies.

This exhibition draws on colonial panoramas in the University of Melbourne Art Collection: coastal profiles, city scenes, and landscapes, that encompass the breadth of the Australian panoramic vision. The panoramas are paired with photographic and digital works from contemporary Australian artists, exploring their continued fascination with the idea of vision and illusion.