Biography and Current Research

Anthony Downey is an academic, author, and editor. Developing collaborative partnerships with artists, cultural practitioners and institutions, his interdisciplinary research supports a critical understanding of cultural practices from the Middle East and Global South. To date, his research has focused on the politics of knowledge production, digital methodologies, and the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in models of neo-colonial image production. 

Downey is Professor of Visual Culture in the Middle East & North Africa (Birmingham City University), and sits on the editorial boards of Third Text (Routledge), Digital War (Palgrave Macmillan), and Memory, Mind & Media (Cambridge University Press). He is the series editor for Research/Practice (Sternberg Press/MIT Press, 2019–ongoing), which includes volumes produced in collaboration with Michael Rakowitz, Heba Y. Amin, Larissa Sansour, Trevor Paglen and, forthcoming, Rabih Mroué. From 2011-2018, Downey was the Editor-in-Chief of Ibraaz (currently under redevelopment), an online research journal that commissioned and supported research from the Middle East and Global South.

In his role as the Cultural Lead and Co-Investigator on Disability Under Siege, a four-year £2.2 million Arts Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project, Downey’s practice focuses on the expansion of educational and cultural provision for children with disabilities in Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territories, and Jordan. Anthony’s upcoming publication is Decolonising Vision: Artificial Intelligence and the Post-Digital Image (forthcoming, 2025). In 2026, alongside Heba Y. Amin, he will co-author When I see the Future, I Close my Eyes: Digital Methodologies and the Techno-Politics of Programmed Vision (forthcoming, Sternberg Press & MIT Press).