kith and kin; an enveloping artwork created in situ by First Nations artist Archie Moore, premieres at the Australia Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Commissioned by Creative Australia, the exhibition is curated by Ellie Buttrose and is on view from 20 April to 24 November 2024.
Drawing on his Kamilaroi, Bigambul, British and Scottish heritage, the installation embodies Moore’s enduring exploration of history and identity, central themes in his artistic practice spanning over thirty years. His work brings international awareness to the vitality of First Nations kinship, in spite of facing systemic injustices since British invasion in 1770.
Archie Moore, kith and kin, 2024, Australia Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2024. Photograph: Andrea Rossetti. © the artist. Image courtesy the artist and The Commercial, Sydney
“kith and kin is a memorial dedicated to every living thing that has ever lived, it is a space for quiet reflection on the past, the present and the future.”
– Archie Moore
Archie Moore, kith and kin, 2024, Australia Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2024. Photograph: Andrea Rossetti. © the artist. Image courtesy the artist and The Commercial, Sydney
Hand-drawn in white chalk, the genealogical chart unfolds across the Pavilion’s five-metre-high black walls that run sixty metres in length, illustrating Moore’s lineage stretching back more than 2,400 generations. Derived from the artist’s research with family, community and archivists, this intricate map of relations reflects the unique familial structures of First Nations Australians that includes all living things and affirms their status as some of the longest-continuous living cultures in the world. Extending across the Pavilion’s black ceiling, the inscribed names resemble a celestial map; evoking the ancestors’ resting place. In the First Nations Australian understanding of time; the past, present and future are co-present. By placing tens of thousands of years of kin on a single continuum, Moore makes this notion visible to audiences.
Archie Moore, kith and kin, 2024, Australia Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2024. Photograph: Andrea Rossetti. © the artist. Image courtesy the artist and The Commercial, Sydney
kith and kin illustrates the shift from Indigenous to European languages, the translation of oral languages to written text, and the introduction of racial categories and slurs. Moments of erasure amidst the names represent the atrocities inflicted upon First Nations communities, such as massacres, the introduction of diseases and destruction of knowledge that have all produced intergenerational trauma.
A reflective pool, at the centre of the Pavilion, evokes the atmosphere of a memorial and pays tribute to the injustices still faced by First Nations peoples today. Suspended above it are more than 500 document stacks containing mainly coronial inquests on the deaths of Indigenous Australians in police custody dated in our lifetime.
Bringing together leading artists, curators, and writers on Thursday 18 April at Fondazione Querini Stampalia, ‘In discussion with kith and kin’ is a series of panel discussions that invite audiences to engage in greater depth with the themes that underpin Moore’s Australia Pavilion; First Nations language maintenance and art’s role in abolition movements.
Following the exhibition in the Australia Pavilion, the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Brisbane, plans to present kith and kin as part of its 2025–26 program.
