Archie Moore and Ellie Buttrose on the making of kith and kin

Join artist Archie Moore and curator Ellie Buttrose for a discussion about the making of kith and kin, Moore's work in the Australia Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, which won the Golden Lion for Best National Pavilion. kith and kin is a celebration of First Nations sovereignty and kinship and also functions as a memorial to First Nations people whose lives were cut short while in police custody. In this discussion, Buttrose and Moore offer insights into the proposal process, archival research, exhibition design and the installation of the artwork.

This event is presented by Monash Art Lectures (Monash University Museum of Art and Monash Fine Art) and will be opened by N'Arweet Professor Carolyn Briggs AM, Senior Boonwurrung Elder and Professor in Practice-Led Research in Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab at Monash University, and Dr Peta Clancy, Associate Dean Indigenous Monash Art Design and Architecture and a Yorta Yorta/Bangerang artist.

Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist Archie Moore (b. 1970, Toowoomba) works across media in conceptual, research-based portrayals of self and national histories. His ongoing interests include key signifiers of identity (skin, language, smell, home, genealogy, flags), the borders of intercultural understanding and misunderstanding, and the wider concerns of racism. His recent solo exhibitions include: Pillors of Democracy, Cairns Art Gallery, 2023; Dwelling (Victorian Issue), Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2022; The Colour Line: Archie Moore & W.E.B. Du Bois, UNSW Galleries, Sydney, 2021; and Archie Moore 1970–2018, Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane, 2018.

Ellie Buttrose is a Curator at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane. At QAGOMA, Buttrose is a member of the curatorial team for The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, opening in November 2024; she curated Living Patterns, 2023, focused on artists who deploy abstraction as a political as well as formal device; and, with Katina Davidson, Curator, Indigenous Australian Art, she co-curated Embodied Knowledge, 2022, which featured the centrepiece commission by Archie Moore, Inert State, 2022. Buttrose will also be the curator of the 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

^{Image: Artist Archie Moore and curator Ellie Buttrose. Photo: Rhett Hammerton}