Passage

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

– Atong Atem, 2025

Through portrait photography, Melbourne-based South Sudanese artist Atong Atem (born 1991, Ethiopia) uses her body as a canvas adorned with textiles, paint and symbolic objects. Richly layered and vibrant, Atem’s work draws together a lineage of African studio photography, family archives, Catholic imagery and science fiction, connecting the earth and cosmos.

Atem traces a transcontinental and intergenerational journey that honours the myths and traditions of Dinka Bor culture – a Nilotic ethnic group from South Sudan. Central to this enquiry is the relationship between the individual, their environment and the ancestors. Her portraits explore performance, both in daily life and before the camera, creating spaces where history, memory and imagination intertwine. In this way, the artist’s body becomes a site where memories gather, taking the form of a map, a vessel or a constellation.

Passage is Atem’s first major Australian solo exhibition, presenting new and existing works by a leading contemporary photographer of her generation. Noting the neglect of East African contributions in mainstream art history, Atem places herself and her community within her photographs. Photography, historically used as a colonial instrument, becomes a tool for reclaiming agency – asking where we come from, where we belong, and what might exist beyond what we already know.

THE ARTIST

Atong Atem is an Ethiopian-born, South Sudanese artist living in Naarm/Melbourne. Her 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. Internationally her work has been exhibited at the Tate Modern (London) Wereldmuseum (Rotterdam), Fotografiska Shanghai, Stadtgalerie (Germany), Victoria and Albert Museum (London) and the National Maritime Museum (Amsterdam) (Het Scheepvaartmuseum). In 2025, Atem exhibited at the Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France in partnership with PHOTO Australia, where she was selected as one of six nominees for the Prix de La Photo Madame Figaro-Arles. She was the recipient of the inaugural La Prairie Art Award from the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2022 and the National Gallery of Victoria and MECCA M-Power scholarship in 2017. Atong has developed numerous collaborations with the fashion world including Romance was Born, Social Studio and Harper’s Bazaar. Her work is held in public and private collections across Australia and the world.

THE PUBLICATION

A fully illustrated new monograph produced in partnership with Thames & Hudson Australia will be published to coincide with the exhibition.

The book includes essays by Osei Bonsu, Jorge M. Pérez Senior Curator, International Art, Africa and Diaspora, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom; Clothilde Morette, Artistic Director, Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), Paris, France; reflections from Atem Yaak Atem and Anna Abul Malual Aguer; an interview with the artist and Natasha Bullock, Senior Curator, Photography, NGV, Melbourne, Australia and Anna Honan, Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art, NGV, Melbourne, Australia and an afterword by Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV, Melbourne, Australia.