Archie Moore: Kith and Kin
After winning the Golden Lion at the 2024 60th Venice Biennale, Archie Moore’s landmark installation, kith and kin, makes its highly anticipated Australian debut at QAGOMA. Spanning the gallery walls in chalk on a blackboard, Moore’s expansive genealogical map traces 65,000+ years of Kamilaroi and Bigambul ancestry. Interweaving the names of kin with rivers, animals, and landforms, the work speaks to an enduring cosmology of connection, care, and custodianship. At its centre, a reflective pool honours First Nations lives lost in police custody, turning the installation into a space of mourning and remembrance. Moore’s use of fragile materials highlights both the vulnerability and resilience of Indigenous peoples. For Moore, time is not linear but co-present; kith and kin invites viewers to experience this temporal depth and collective inheritance. This deeply moving work reckons with the intergenerational legacies of colonisation, while affirming kinship as a radical act of survival and sovereignty. It is on display from September 27, 2025 to October 18, 2026
Image credit: Installation view, ARCHIE MOORE, kith and kin, 2024, Australia Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2024. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy the artist and The Commercial, Gadigal Country/ Sydney © Archie Moore
