Over the weekend, international news sources and social media channels were abuzz with the news that Australian Indigenous artist, Archie Moore’s exhibition kith and kin, presented at the Australia Pavilion at 60th La Biennale de Venezia 2024, had been awarded the prestigious Golden Lion for Best National Participation.
It is the first time that Australia has been awarded this recognition in the Biennale’s 130-year history.
The jury commented on Moore’s installation: ‘This installation stands out for its strong aesthetic, its lyricism and its invocation of a shared loss of an occluded past. With his inventory of thousands of names, Moore also offers a glimmer of the possibility of recovery.’
On congratulating Moore and curator Ellie Buttrose, the ustralian Government’s Minister for the Arts, Tony Burke said: ‘When I announced the Government’s support for the new pavilion for the Venice Biennale back in 2013, we could only hope that one day one of our artists would receive this level of recognition.’
On receiving this award, Archie Moore told media: ‘As the water flows through the canals of Venice to the Lagoon, then to the Adriatic Sea, it then travels to the oceans and to the rest of the world – enveloping the continent of Australia – connecting us all here on Earth. Aboriginal kinship systems include all living things from the environment in a larger network of relatedness, the land itself can be a mentor or a parent to a child. We are all one and share a responsibility of care to all living things now and into the future.
‘I am very grateful for this accolade; it makes me feel honoured to be rewarded for the hard work one does. I am grateful to everyone who has always been part of my journey – from my kith to my kin – to my Creative Australia team and everyone else back home and those of the Venice Lagoon.’
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In a formal statement released over the weekend by Creative Australia – the peak body charged with commissioning and managing Australia’s participation as the oldest Biennale in the world – Executive Director, First Nations Arts and Culture, Franchesca Cubillo said: ‘For the exhibition to receive this remarkable international recognition has made us all incredibly proud and deeply moved.
‘We congratulate Archie on his historic accolade and celebrate this moment of global recognition of the depth of his artistic expression.’
Curator Ellie Buttrose, who worked with Moore on delivering this phenomenal hand-drawn installation, added: ‘Moore profoundly affects those who listen. kith and kin enfolds all of us into Archie’s family. To be kin is to carry responsibilities – duties for each other and all living things throughout time. This commendation is a celebration of Archie’s generosity – it is an honour to witness his art.’
Burke continued: ‘Archie’s work kith and kin shows the power of Australian art and storytelling going right back to the first sunrise. Australian stories help us to understand ourselves, know more about each other, and let the world get to know us. That’s exactly what this artwork does.’
About the exhibition
In kith and kin, Moore transforms the Australia Pavilion with an expansive, genealogical chart that has been hand-drawn in chalk. It sprawls the Pavilion’s 60-metre wall length and five-metre height, and takes on the quality of a celestial map.
Key to the installation is the First Nations Australian understanding of time, in which past, present and future coexist.
It pulls upon Moore’s Kamilaroi, Bigambul, British and Scottish heritage, and ‘brings international awareness to the vitality of First Nations kinship, in spite of facing systemic injustices since British invasion in 1770,’ Creative Australia explained of the installation’s focus.
kith and kin also illustrates the shift from Indigenous to European languages, the translation of oral languages to written text, and the introduction of racial categories and slurs, and the associated traumas associated with colonisation.
A reflective pool central to the Pavilion creates an atmosphere of a memorial, while suspended above it are more than 500 document stacks containing mainly coronial inquests on the deaths of Indigenous Australians in police custody.
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.
Achie Moore
Ellie Buttrose said: ‘The names of thousands upon thousands of Archie’s Kamilaroi and Bigambul forebears engulf the Australia Pavilion, declaring the artist’s sovereignty and that of his people. kith and kin reaches so far back into time that it includes the common ancestors of every human and all living entities — a timely reminder that we all have kinship responsibilities to one another. The simultaneity of past, present and future underpins the First Nations Australian understanding of time. By placing 65,000-plus years of family on a single continuum, kith and kin immerses audiences in the co-presence of the ancestors and co-existence of time – by doing so Archie generously enfolds each of us into the everywhen.’
Creative Australia explained: ‘The artwork bridges the personal and the political. While many of the stories in kith and kin are specific to the artist’s family, they mirror narratives throughout the world. Through this lens Moore highlights our shared ancestry and humanity: through the interconnectedness of people, place and time.’
Read: Themes revealed for Archie Moore’s presentation at Venice Biennale
Cubillo added of Moore’s winning installation: ‘kith and kin is an extraordinary history painting of unprecedented scale… Through this powerful and compelling artwork, Archie asserts Indigenous sovereignty and celebrates the ongoing vitality of First Nations knowledge systems and kinship.’
Archie Moore is a Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist (b. 1970, Toowoomba, Queensland) who works across media in conceptual, research-based portrayals of self and national histories.
Ellie Buttrose is a Curator at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.
Exhibition details
Australia Pavilion, Giardini di Castello 30122, Venice.
Exhibition dates: 20 April – 24 November 2024
Exhibition website
Following the exhibition in the Australia Pavilion, the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) plans to present kith and kin as part of its 2025-26 program.
