Dr Daisy Dixon | Cardiff University

Date | 11 February 2026

Title | 'Aesthetic Slurs'

Abstract:

[Content warnings: racist & antisemitic imagery and language.]

I present a novel account of what I call the ‘aesthetic slur’. Inspired by Patricia Hill Collins’s notion of ‘controlling images’, I delineate images which behave in much the same way as linguistic slurs, analysing particularly their feature of ‘effluence’; how their harmful content can leak out and not be insulated by intention or context. I then use this analysis to explain what went wrong with Makode Linde's controversial artwork Painful Cake (2012).