Henna 1 (2021) from the Banksia series 2021. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of the artist and MARS Gallery, Melbourne, 2023. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf

Photography, ancestry and Dinka Bor culture fill the Ian Potter Centre in Melbourne through June 14, 2027

By Samuel Navarro Serpa

MELBOURNE, Australia — On Oct. 30, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) opens Passage: The Art of Atong Atem, the artist’s first major solo exhibition in Australia. The show occupies Level 3 of the Ian Potter Centre at Federation Square in Melbourne and runs through June 14, 2027, with free admission. It brings together new and existing works by an artist the NGV describes as a leading contemporary photographer of her generation.

Red dust sticks to you (2022) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, Victoria Foundation for Living Australian Artists. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf

Image as territory, body as canvas

A South Sudanese artist born in 1991 in Ethiopia and based in Melbourne, Atem turns her own body into a working surface, adorned with fabrics, paint and symbolic objects. The result is vibrant and layered.

A yellow dress, a bouquet 3 2022 from the A Yellow Dress, A Bouquet series 2022. Art Gallery of New South Wales, La Prairie Art Award 2022.Photo: Atong Atem

Lineages of African studio photography, family archives, Catholic iconography and science fiction intersect in the images, connecting land to the cosmos. The artist charts a transcontinental, intergenerational journey that honors the myths and traditions of the Dinka Bor, a Nilotic ethnic group from South Sudan. At the center of the inquiry are the relationships among the individual, the environment and the ancestors.

Ego 2 2019 from the Ego series.Photo: Atong Atem

Both in everyday life and before the camera, performance guides the portraits. In these scenes, history, memory and imagination intertwine, and the artist’s body takes the form of a map, a vessel or a constellation where recollections gather.

Men in this town 05 2024 from the Men In This Town series 2024.Photo: Atong Atem

Historically used as a colonial instrument, photography here serves to reclaim agency. Atem notes the neglect of East African contributions in mainstream art history and responds by placing herself and her community in the images. Her questions concern origin, belonging and what might exist beyond the known.

Atong Atem Scar 2 2024 from the Scars and Constellations series 2024. Commissioned by the National Maritime Museum, Amsterdam (Het Scheepvaartmuseum), 2024.Photo: Atong Atem

“We carry the presence of people we’ve never met but who live on through us through names, practices and photographs,” Atem said in 2025.

What we were given 2024 from the Scars and Constellations series 2024. Commissioned by the National Maritime Museum, Amsterdam. Photo: Atong Atem

Atem’s works have been shown at Australian museums including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Portrait Gallery, the Immigration Museum and the NGV itself. Abroad, they have appeared at Tate Modern and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam, Fotografiska Shanghai, the Stadtgalerie in Germany and Het Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam. In 2025, Atem exhibited at the Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles, France, and was one of six nominees for the Prix de la Photo Madame Figaro-Arles. Winner of the inaugural La Prairie Art Award from the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2022, she also received the NGV and MECCA M-Power scholarship in 2017. Collaborations include Romance Was Born, Social Studio and Harper’s Bazaar.

Our neighbour was a witch 2022 from the Surat series 2022. National Gallery of Victoria, Melboure. Photo: Atong Atem

Produced with Thames & Hudson Australia, a fully illustrated monograph will launch alongside the exhibition. The volume gathers essays by Osei Bonsu, Jorge M. Pérez senior curator of International Art, Africa and Diaspora at Tate Modern, and Clothilde Morette, artistic director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. It includes reflections by Atem Yaak Atem and Anna Abul Malual Aguer, plus an interview with the artist by NGV curators Natasha Bullock, senior curator of photography, and Anna Honan, assistant curator of contemporary art. Tony Ellwood AM, the museum’s director, wrote the afterword.

Details

Passage: The Art of Atong Atem
NGV Australia, Ian Potter Centre, Federation Square, Level 3, Melbourne
Oct. 30, 2026, to June 14, 2027
Free admission

To learn more, visit https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/