Silent Screams of Memories

Telly Tuita, The Great Land of Oz (detail), 2023. Commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre. Photo by Jodie Barker.

Telly Tuita, The Great Land of Oz (detail), 2023. Commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre. Photo by Jodie Barker.

upcoming
18 Jul – 29 Aug

Telly Tuita

Silent Screams of Memories is an exhibition by Telly Tuita exploring childhood memories through an adult lens. Tuita, who was born in Tonga, spent the first nine years of his life there before being sent to live in Australia. Decades removed from this period, he is able to respond to horror with humour in Repressed Memories, a newly commissioned series at the heart of this exhibition. A head with soap in its mouth, a hand next to an axe, a head through a wall—these confronting images evoke moments of trauma from his time in Australia, a land often lauded for the opportunity it can offer those who relocate there.

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Tuita’s new Screaming Idol series represents the artist’s fourteen years of childhood—nine years in Tonga and five in Australia—before he was kicked out of home and forced into adulthood. Older works, including The Great Land of Oz, have also been recontextualised, becoming a wry commentary on nationhood and belonging. Presented alongside this installation is Boy with Red Apple, a short film by Jamie Berry exploring Tuita’s earlier years in Tonga. 

The darkness underpinning the exhibition has bled outward into Silent Screams of Memories’ visual form. Dominated by black, the exhibition marks a striking aesthetic departure for Tuita, who is known for his use of bright colours.

 

Curated by Brooke Pou

Telly Tuita is recognised for the way his work brings together Pacific heritage, personal narrative, and bold visual language. Tuita coined the term Tongpop to celebrate the artist's rich relationship with his ancestral home of Tonga, as well as his lived experiences in Australia and Aotearoa. Within his practice of video, photography, painting, sculpture and installation, Tuita navigates ideas of home and belonging, identity, and self-worth. His work encapsulates an experience lived between two realities. 

Tuita has exhibited widely across Australia, New Zealand and internationally. His first major solo show, Tongpop’s Great Expectations, was held at Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW in 2024. He has exhibited at Tautai, the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Tauranga Art Gallery, and the Centre of Contemporary Art Toi Moroki. In 2025 Tuita was selected as Sydney Festival's Visual Artist in Residence, where he transformed the Thirsty Mile precinct with the work Tā and Vā of Tongpop. Tuita has also shown at international events including La biennale d’art contemporain autochtone / The Contemporary Native Art Biennial, the Aotearoa Art Fair, and the Ballarat International Foto Biennale.

 

Jamie Berry is a multidisciplinary artist of Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti
Porou, Ngāpuhi, and Ngāti Ruanui descent, originally from Tūranganui-a-Kiwa and based in
Pōneke, Aotearoa. Her work explores Aotearoa histories and her relationship to identity and
place through moving image, installation, digital media, and sound. She is known for creating
immersive environments using light, colour, movement, and audio to express the
interconnection of past, present, and future.

Her practice extends into live audio-visual performance, where she composes visual and
sonic elements in real time to respond to space and audience. Her work
Whakapapa/Algorithms premiered at the Oberhausen Film Festival and was selected for the
Beijing International Art Biennale. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally,
including the Malta International Art Biennale, and has developed large-scale public works
and Matariki commissions across Pōneke.

Alongside her artistic practice, Berry works as a freelance digital artist, designer, and VJ,
recently serving as Lead Designer for the Aotearoa section of WOW 2025. She was selected
for the Contemporary Native Art Biennial (BACA) 2026–2027. Her work is driven by a
commitment to reclaiming narrative, strengthening Indigenous presence within digital and
spatial practice, and creating environments where whakapapa, technology, and lived
experience intersect.