Artist Atong Atem: ‘Black women saved my life, I would say’ | mrbenjaminlaw
Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Atong Atem. The Ethiopian-born, Melbourne-based South Sudanese Australian artist and photographer, 31, is theAtong Atem: “Growing up, I sort of learnt to embody a physical sense of stillness in order to make other people feel safe.”You attended Hillsong Church as a teenager.
No, I don’t. It’s not that I’m not a believer in God, I’ve just found it difficult to combine my politics in the human realm with politics outside the human realm. So my relationship to church – and to God – is still being formulated.This is something a lot of other people have reckoned with: the deeply colonial nature of the modern-day church and how much that has influenced the state. We have laws in regards to, say, marriage – what is and is not allowed – that come from western Christianity.
We grew up with not very much of it at all. Five kids, and my mum was predominantly the only parent around because of visa issues. So there was a lot of scrimping and saving, and I’m sure Mum was doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes. We sort of accepted that a lot of things just weren’t for us. All the cool kids in school had the Roxy backpack and the Billabong pencil case; mine was from Best & Less. It was just a thing that I accepted.
I was deeply aware of my body growing up. I was always kind of “on”, and I sort of learnt to embody a physical sense of stillness in order to make other people feel safe. I was afraid to make movements that could be interpreted as shocking, scary or terrifying because I had internalised this idea that my body was inherently shocking, scary and terrifying. It was so different to the bodies around me.