In 2026, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) presents the first-ever major solo exhibition of South Sudanese, Naarm Melbourne-based contemporary artist Atong Atem, who is celebrated for her dynamic and vibrant photographic self-portraits that explore identity, mythmaking and intergenerational storytelling. Opening 30 October 2026 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Passage: The Art of Atong Atem is a world-premiere exhibition surveying the past decade of the artist’s practice. Bringing together more than 65 works, it is the most comprehensive presentation of Atem’s work to date.

In her vivid self-portraits, Atem is both subject and storyteller, embodying generations of memory and tradition. 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 Naarm Melbourne’s African diaspora. The exhibition demonstrates how Atem uses photography as a medium for celebration and reclamation. Her practice interrogates how identity is performed, both in everyday life and before the camera, creating images in which history, memory and imagination intertwine.

The exhibition conceptually and spatially explores ideas of movement and journeys—global themes brought to life through Atem’s personal experience of migration. Born in Ethiopia to South Sudanese parents, Atem and her family made their home in Australia in 1997. Through her work, Atem links continents and generations, honouring the cultural stories and memories that have endured displacement and war.

The exhibition includes world-premiere and Australian-premiere works, alongside series presented in their entirety for the very first time. Highlights include the Australian premiere of Scars and Constellations (2024), a series commissioned by the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam. These powerful images explore the complex relationship between sea, sky and the histories of colonial trade and navigation. Central to the series is scarification, a Dinka Bor cultural practice carrying deep meaning in identity, ritual and healing that is also layered with the histories of conflict.

Atem will debut a world-premiere commission created exclusively for this exhibition at the NGV. This large-scale wall installation, As Above (2026), explores the stories held in the skies and constellations weaving together Dinka dance, traditional beading and Catholic iconography. The work also references the astronomical concept of the false cross, which are groupings of stars that mimic the Southern Cross. The work explores how we position ourselves within vast cosmic, historical, cultural systems that surround and shape us.

Also on display for the first time in a major Australian cultural institution is Banksia (2021), a photographic series taken at the Immigration Museum in Naarm Melbourne. Atem turns her lens toward African, African American and Caribbean convicts and free settlers who arrived with the First Fleet. The work prompts audiences to reconsider the foundations of Australian identity, while creating a space for reclamation.

Shown in its entirety for the first time, Surat (2022) examines the mythological aspects of portraiture through family photographs. 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; they are inherited to honour ancestors. Atem’s photographs embody this idea, acting as visual relics that unite a family across time and space.