James Tylor: Turrangka...in the shadows
- When 29 Mar - 25 May 2025
- Where
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Address
Civic Reserve, Dunns Rd, Mornington VIC 3931
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Hours
TUE TO SUN 11AM–4PM
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Phone
(03) 5950 1580
Multi-disciplinary artist James Tylor combines historical and contemporary photographic processes to explore his Nunga (Kaurna Miyurna), Māori (Te Arawa) and European (English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch and Norwegian) ancestry.
‘Turrangka…in the shadows’ surveys a decade of Tylor’s practice and, for the first time, brings together the most comprehensive selection of his unique daguerreotypes, expansive digital photographic series, hand-made Kaurna cultural objects, and furniture. The exhibition title is drawn from a Kaurna word, highlighting a significant ongoing aspect of Tylor’s practice: the learning and sharing of his Indigenous language. As well as shadow, turra also translates to reflection, image, and mirror.
At the core of Tylor’s practice is a continuously innovative programme of photographic intervention, disrupting the image to redact or highlight visual information. He systematically alters the reading of Country by excising information from the photographic print or inscribing language and place-names onto the surface of his daguerreotypes. These photographs provide a glimpse into Tylor’s broader practice of recreating Kaurna cultural artefacts, architecture, and ephemera. Antiquated analogue photographic processes including Becquerel daguerreotypes and hand-tinting are also used to generate a new archive of pseudo-historical images. Tylor’s recreations point to the absence of these images from the hegemonic depiction of colonial Australia’s visual history.
These strategies are at the service of exploring the suppression and erasure of Aboriginal cultural history from the Australian landscape through the ongoing legacy of colonialism. Tylor considers his actions of learning Kaurna language and reviving culture on Country as a means of repatriation. ‘Turrangka…in the shadows’ looks at the complex interplay of techniques and the incisive observations on Australia’s fraught history that characterise Tylor’s prolific and profound artistic practice.
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Curated by Leigh Robb
Publication developed with the generous support of Vivien Anderson Gallery.
Touring Venues
John Curtin Gallery, WA
3 July – 14 September 2025
Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, VIC
29 March – 25 May 2025
Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, NSW
15 March – 4 May 2024
Centre for Contemporary Photography, VIC
22 September – 17 November 2023

Banner: James Tylor, From an untouched landscape 2013. Installation view, 'Turrangka... in the shadows' UNSW Galleries, 2023. Photography by Jacquie Manning. Title: James Tylor, Hopes, Dreams and Nightmares #3 2013. Becquerel Daguerreotype, 10x 12 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and N.Smith Gallery, Sydney