First Nations Peoples of Australia are among the oldest continuous living cultures on earth; Archie Moore’s kith and kin affirms this by tracing the artist’s Kamilaroi and Bigambul relations over 65,000+ years. The artist’s extensive drawing captures the common ancestors of all humans alongside animals, plants, waterways and landforms in order to emphasise our kinship responsibilities to each other and our surroundings.
His choice of materials for this celestial map of names — fragile chalk on blackboard — addresses the need to disseminate First Nations histories and languages more widely. At the centre of the installation is a reflective pool, a memorial for First Nations individuals who have died in police custody, highlighting how Indigenous Australians are some of the most incarcerated people globally. The coronial inquests stand in as administrative markers of the departed, who are cradled by the watery reflection of the handwritten family to commemorate their ties to this vast web of relations. In a Kamilaroi understanding of time, past, present and future are co-present. By placing tens of thousands of years of kin on a single continuum, Archie Moore enfolds audiences within a First Nations understanding of time.
kith and kin was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at La Biennale de Venezia 2024. The artwork was gifted to the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and Tate by Creative Australia on behalf of the Australian Government 2024. This presentation will be the first time the kith and kin has been exhibited since its debut in Venice, Italy.
Image: Archie Moore, Kamilaroi/Bigambul peoples, Australia b.1970 / kith and kin (installation view, Australia Pavilion, Venice Biennale) 2024 / Presented to QAGOMA and Tate by Creative Australia on behalf of the Australian Government 2024 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Archie Moore / Photograph: Andrea Rossetti / Image courtesy: The artist and The Commercial, Sydney
