Museum of Optography, a Talk by Derek Ogbourne
The We Make Wycombe Hub, High Wycombe, HP112BW
Monday 17th August 2026
The Museum of Optography is not a conventional permanent museum, but an ongoing conceptual art project created by British artist Derek Ogbourne, inspired by the curious history of optography—the 19th-century belief that the last image seen before death could be preserved on the retina. Blending art, science, myth, the museum explores the enduring fascination with vision, memory, and the boundary between fact and fiction.
Optography originated from experiments by German physiologist Wilhelm Kühne in the 1870s. He successfully produced faint retinal images (optograms) in animals and one human being shortly after death under carefully controlled laboratory conditions. However, the idea that a murder victim's eyes could reveal the killer's face was never scientifically validated and has long been rejected as a forensic technique.
Ogbournes Museum of Optography project has grown to include roughly 300 artworks, several exhibition catalogues, and the Encyclopedia of Optography. Exhibitions since the first at Gallerie Brigitte Schenk, Cologne in 2007 have been in Heidelberg, Belgrade, Sharjah, London, Oxford and most recently in Sydney with the 25th Biennale.
If you'd like to explore the project further:
Optography originated from experiments by German physiologist Wilhelm Kühne in the 1870s. He successfully produced faint retinal images (optograms) in animals and one human being shortly after death under carefully controlled laboratory conditions. However, the idea that a murder victim's eyes could reveal the killer's face was never scientifically validated and has long been rejected as a forensic technique.
Ogbournes Museum of Optography project has grown to include roughly 300 artworks, several exhibition catalogues, and the Encyclopedia of Optography. Exhibitions since the first at Gallerie Brigitte Schenk, Cologne in 2007 have been in Heidelberg, Belgrade, Sharjah, London, Oxford and most recently in Sydney with the 25th Biennale.
If you'd like to explore the project further:
- Museum of Optography
- Encyclopedia of Optography
