JAMES TYLOR: TURRANGKA and CIPX KAURNA MIYURNA to Open at AGSA

Bringing together Kaurna artists Damien Shen and James Tylor on Kaurna Country, the Art Gallery of South Australia will present two significant photographic exhibitions, James Tylor: Turrangka…in the shadows and CIPX Kaurna Miyurna (Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange with the Kaurna Community). Opening on 31 July, Turrangka…in the shadows unites more than a decade of Tylor's acclaimed artistic practice, presenting the most comprehensive selection of his work in a major solo exhibition. Alongside this survey exhibition, Shen and Tylor collaboratively present CIPX Kaurna Miyurna, a powerful tintype photographic project celebrating important members of the Kaurna community in Tarntanya (Adelaide).

AGSA Director, Jason Smith, said, 'AGSA will present two contemporary exhibitions led by Kaurna artists, and bring Kaurna visions and histories into focus. James Tylor: Turrangka… in the shadows and CIPX Kaurna Miyurna are profoundly important assertions of, and opportunities to interact with Kaurna culture and to celebrate and respect the leadership and work of many members of the Kaurna community.'

The Hon Kyam Maher MLC, Minister for Arts, said, 'These two important Kaurna-led exhibitions honour the strength and continuity of Kaurna culture. Through the work of James Tylor and Damien Shen, these powerful projects reclaim how Kaurna stories are told, ensuring their histories are seen and recognised on their own terms.'

James Tylor: Turrangka...in the shadows | 31 July to 1 November 2026

Presented in partnership with UNSW Galleries and returning to Kaurna Country following a national tour, Turrangka...in the shadows surveys a decade of James Tylor's practice. Featuring more than 150 images and objects across twelve series, the exhibition brings together daguerreotypes, large-scale photographs and hand-crafted cultural objects to explore the ongoing impacts of colonisation on First Nations cultures, particularly the Kaurna people of South Australia.

The title references both the relationship of light and shadow in photography and the Kaurna word turra, meaning shadow, reflection, image and mirror. Deliberately excluding sections from landscapes to draw attention to the losses and blind spots in our collective memory, Tylor uses redaction, revelation, reconstruction and language to reimagine histories and cultural narratives. Drawing on early photographic techniques, including nineteenth-century daguerreotypes and hand-colouring, alongside recreated Kaurna cultural objects, he creates a contemporary archive that celebrates Aboriginal Country, knowledge and cultural continuity.

Reflecting on his solo exhibition at AGSA, Tylor commented, 'I like to disrupt traditional daguerreotypes by capturing significant Kaurna Aboriginal places excluded from history. 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.'

Exhibition curator, Leigh Robb, Curator of Contemporary Art, AGSA, said, 'Turrangka…in the shadows captures the first chapter of James Tylor's formidable artistic practice. Through his photographs Tylor ushers in a world of images that honours the land on which they were taken and expands First Nations knowledge. For Tylor, everything starts on and returns us to Country, and bringing his survey exhibition to the Art Gallery of South Australia marks an important homecoming.'

Gaps and missing knowledge underpin Tylor's expanded photographic installations, including From an Untouched Landscape, 2013–18. This sprawling installation unites twenty of his landscape photographs with carved mudli (tools) and hunting implements made by the artist—such as wirri (clubs), ipila (clap sticks), kaya (grasstree spears), and wadna (climbing sticks).

In his series, Turralayinthi Yarta, 2017, translated to 'landscape photography' and 'to see yourself reflected in the landscape', Tylor inscribes Nunga designs onto landscape photographs using ochre, charcoal and clay gathered from the same regions along the Hans Heysen Trail in South Australia. Through the use of traditional motifs and materials from Country, Tylor makes his presence and that of his ancestors visible in the landscape and challenges colonial representations of the Australian landscape, affirming First Nations connections to the region.

Other works in Turrangka...in the shadows emphasise the Kaurna Miyurna people's rich historical and cultural connection to the region. 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 | Until 1 November 2026

CIPX Kaurna Miyurna, a new photographic series by Kaurna artists Damien Shen and James Tylor, features seventeen large-scale portraits created and presented at AGSA as part of the Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CIPX). This international Indigenous portraiture project was first conceived by Will Wilson, a Diné (Navajo) artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.

The open format project invites Indigenous photographers from around the world to create portraits of their local communities using the historic tintype process. Shen and Tylor have brought this 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. With each sitter's permission, Shen and Tylor present large-scale reproductions on aluminium to be displayed at AGSA.

Artist Damien Shen said, 'These portraits honour Kaurna community members, Elders and cultural leaders across generations, people who carry deep connections to family, community and Country. 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, free entry. CIPX Kaurna Miyurna (Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange with the Kaurna Community) is on display at AGSA until 1 November 2026, free entry. For further details visit agsa.sa.gov.au.

Need more Australia - Adelaide Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...