Celebrate the end of the school year at the NGV!
Join us to celebrate the achievements of 2026 with exclusive after-hours access to the exhibitions Margaret Preston and Passage: The Art of Atong Atem, and join artist talks and activities with Atong Atem and Dr Deanne Gilson.
Discover what’s on offer for students and teachers of all levels and subjects at the NGV in the coming year, including exhibition highlights, excursions, incursions, practical workshops and professional learning opportunities.
Ticket includes access to exhibitions and light refreshments.
Passage: The Art of Atong Atem
This is Atem’s first major solo exhibition in Australia, presenting new and existing photographic works by a leading artist in her generation of contemporary photography. Atem’s work explores inherited traditions and ancestral memories, societal norms around gender and race, and both emotional and physical scars. Richly layered and vibrant, Atem’s photographs connect beauty and design with a lineage of African studio photography, feminist aesthetics, and diasporic narratives.
Margaret Preston
The art of Margaret Preston has shaped the cultural and aesthetic landscape of Australia. Participating in the growing discourses surrounding modernism, Preston merged a variety of influences, such as Post-Impressionism, primitivism in European art, the Arts and Craft movement, and Japanese ukiyo-e. This retrospective exhibition contextualises Preston alongside her peers, as well as contemporary artists who have responded to her legacy.
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.
Dr Deanne Gilson is a Wadawurrung woman of Aboriginal and Australian/English descent with an art practice spanning nearly forty years. After spending her early childhood in Melbourne, Gilson relocated to her ancestral Country around Ballarat at seven years old, where she nurtured a deep appreciation for Indigenous plants, trees and flowers, many of which feature prominently in her work today. Gilson recently completed a PhD at Deakin University, looking at the objectification of Aboriginal women by the male colonial gaze. She has exhibited extensively around Australia.