The Art Gallery of South Australia will present two significant photographic exhibitions by Kaurna artists James Tylor and Damien Shen, opening on 31 July. Together, the projects bring Kaurna visions, histories and community into focus through historic photographic techniques and reimagined cultural objects.
James Tylor: Turrangka…in the shadows surveys more than a decade of Tylor’s acclaimed practice in the most comprehensive exhibition of his work to date. Presented in partnership with UNSW Galleries and returning to Kaurna Country following a national tour, the exhibition features more than 150 images and objects across twelve series.
The title references both the relationship of light and shadow in photography and the Kaurna word turra, meaning shadow, reflection, image and mirror. Drawing on early photographic techniques including nineteenth-century daguerreotypes and hand-colouring, Tylor explores the ongoing impacts of colonisation on First Nations cultures, particularly the Kaurna people of South Australia.
By deliberately excluding sections from landscapes, Tylor draws attention to the losses and blind spots in our collective memory. He uses redaction, revelation, reconstruction and language to reimagine histories and cultural narratives, creating a contemporary archive that celebrates Aboriginal Country, knowledge and cultural continuity.
“I like to disrupt traditional daguerreotypes by capturing significant Kaurna Aboriginal places excluded from history,” Tylor said. “My work exposes the absence of Aboriginal culture in these images and looks to reinsert it back into history. It feels like a full circle to bring my survey show home to Kaurna Yarta and share it with my friends, family and the Kaurna community.”
Among the works on display is From an Untouched Landscape (2013–18), a sprawling installation uniting twenty landscape photographs with carved mudli (tools) and hunting implements made by the artist, including wirri (clubs), ipila (clap sticks), kaya (grasstree spears) and wadna (climbing sticks). In We call this place…Kaurna Yarta (2020), Tylor engraves each daguerreotype landscape with its Kaurna place name, referencing how many Indigenous place names in South Australia have been replaced with Anglicised names since British colonisation.
CIPX Kaurna Miyurna
Alongside Tylor’s survey exhibition, CIPX Kaurna Miyurna is a collaborative project by Shen and Tylor featuring seventeen large-scale tintype portraits of Kaurna community members. The work forms part of the Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CIPX), an international Indigenous portraiture project first conceived by Diné (Navajo) artist Will Wilson in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Shen and Tylor have brought the project to Australia to recontextualise images of Kaurna people, challenging colonial portraits produced in South Australia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In contrast to earlier historical representations where European photographers controlled both image and ownership, the CIPX prioritises First Nations agency, consent and respect. Sitters determine how they are represented, with the original tintype gifted to them.
“These portraits honour Kaurna community members, Elders and cultural leaders across generations, people who carry deep connections to family, community and Country,” Shen said. “Through this historic photographic process, we aim to reassert a Kaurna presence too often absent from history, capturing how people carry themselves and move through the world. For me as an artist, a portrait is never just a face, but the life lived and the story held within.”
James Tylor: Turrangka…in the shadows is on display at AGSA from 31 July to 1 November 2026. CIPX Kaurna Miyurna is on display until 1 November 2026. Entry to both exhibitions is free. The exhibitions are presented during SALA Festival. For details, visit agsa.sa.gov.au.
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