Passage: The Art of Atong Atem

NGV presents the first-ever major solo exhibition of South Sudanese, Melbourne-based contemporary artist Atong Atem, who is celebrated for her dynamic and vibrant photographic self-portraits that explore identity, mythmaking and intergenerational storytelling.

Transforming herself through textiles, paint, costume and symbolic objects, Atem uses her own body as a vessel 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. The exhibition showcases how Atem uses photography as a medium for celebration and reclamation, and how her practice interrogates how identity is performed, both in everyday life and before the camera, creating images in which history, memory and imagination intertwine.