Australian indigenous artist Archie Moore has won the Golden Lion award at this year's Venice Biennale. Photograph courtesy of the artist and The Commercial. Australian artist Archie Moore’s exhibition, ‘kith and kin’, at the Australia Pavilion has been awarded the prestigious Golden Lion for Best National Participation at La Biennale de Venezia 2024. This is the first time in history an Australian artist has received this accolade.
In ‘kith and kin’, Moore displays a genealogical chart spanning 65,000 years. Hand-drawn in white chalk, the chart illustrates Moore’s lineage stretching back more than 2,400 generations and serves as a stark representation of the decline in First Nations Australian languages and dialects under colonisation.
On receiving this award, Moore said: “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.”
