Atong Atem, the Melbourne-based, South Sudanese artist celebrated for her dynamic and vibrant photographic portraits, will have her first ever major solo exhibition this October in Melbourne.
Presented at the The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Passage: The Art of Atong Atem will survey the past decade of Atem’s practice, exploring her ongoing interests in identity, mythmaking and intergenerational storytelling.
Atong Atem’s first survey exhibition – quick links
A unique voice and perspective
Featuring more than 65 works, including new works and pieces not yet seen in Australia, Passage will be the most comprehensive presentation of Atem’s work to date.
‘If the body is a terrain, who gets to be the geographer and who becomes the cartographer?’ Atem said of her work. ‘My practice as an early career artist has sought to make signposts on the body as a politicised landscape; to document, archive and speculate.’
‘These tensions between heritage, identity and place are at the crux of my impulse to make art,’ she said. ‘I am honoured to share these intimate and universal questions at the NGV in 2026.’
NGV Director Tony Ellwood praised her as an artist ‘redefining what it means to be Australian in contemporary life and culture’.
‘Her work aligns with the broader traditions of African studio photography, feminist aesthetics and diasporic storytelling. Yet, she has crafted a style and perspective that are uniquely her own, earning her recognition worldwide,’ he added.
‘The NGV is proud to showcase Atong’s first major solo exhibition and share her creativity with our audiences.’
In her vivid self portraits, Atem is known for representing the artist as both subject and storyteller. Transforming herself through textiles, paint, costume and symbolic objects, Atem uses her own body to explore themes of race, gender and colonialism, as well as the beauty and resilience of her Dinka Bor culture and Melbourne’s African diaspora.
In the words of ArtsHub‘s Senior Contributor Gina Fairley: ‘Atem’s images are typically staged, often against patterned and high chroma backdrops and building on the history of studio photography in Africa, yet they remain deeply intimate and personal – seeming to reach out to the viewer.’
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A rising profile
Over the past decade, Atem’s work has been exhibited widely across Australia, including at the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Portrait Gallery and the Immigration Museum.
Atem has also broken through overseas, with her work exhibited the Tate Modern and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam and Fotografiska in Shanghai. In 2025, Atem exhibited at the Rencontres D’Arles in partnership with PHOTO Australia, where she was selected as one of six nominees for the Prix de La Photo Madame Figaro-Arles.
Her profile has also grown through numerous collaborations with the fashion world, including Romance was Born, Social Studio and Harper’s Bazaar.
Passage: exhibition highlights
Conceptually and spatially, Passage sets out to explore ideas of movement and journeys – global themes of personal significance for the artist. Born in Ethiopia to South Sudanese parents, Atem and her family made their home in Australia in 1997. Now based in Melbourne, her work links continents and generations, honouring the cultural stories and memories that have endured displacement and war.
As well as premiering new works, Passage will also present several series in their entirety for the very first time. A highlight is the Australian premiere of Scars and Constellations (2024), a series commissioned by the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam that explores the histories of colonial trade and navigation.
Central to this series is scarification, a Dinka Bor cultural practice carrying deep meanings around identity, ritual and healing but layered with the histories of conflict.
The NGV exhibition will also feature a world-premiere commission created exclusively for Passage.
This large-scale wall installation, titled As Above, explores the stories held in the skies and constellations. It weaves together Dinka dance, traditional beading and Catholic iconography, and references the astronomical concept of the false cross, groupings of stars that mimic the Southern Cross.
As Above is an exploration of how we position ourselves within the vast cosmic, historical and cultural systems that surround and shape us.
Also on display for the first time at a major Australian cultural institution is Banksia (2021), a photographic series taken at the Melbourne Immigration Museum that explores the stories of African, African American and Caribbean convicts and free settlers who arrived with the First Fleet.
Banksia prompts audiences to reconsider the foundations of Australian identity, while creating a space for reclamation.
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To be shown in its entirety for the first time, the Surat series examines the mythological aspects of portraiture through family photographs. In this body of work, Atem recreates portraits of relatives known to her only through images, using herself as a bridge for memory and ancestral links.
In Dinka Bor culture, names are not owned individually but inherited to honour ancestors. Atem’s photographs embody this idea, acting as visual relics that unite a family across time and space.
Passage will be accompanied by a new monograph, to be published by Thames & Hudson Australia. It will include essays by Tate Modern Senior Curator Jorge M Pérez and Maison Européenne de la Photographie’s Artistic Director Clothilde Morette, alongside an artist interview and personal reflections from Atem Yaak Atem and Anna Abul Malual Aguer.
