Becky Bligh, from Queensland State Archives’ First Nations Strategy team, reflects on Archie Moore’s award-winning exhibition, kith and kin, and its moving message of family and intergenerational storytelling.
In July, Queensland State Archives hosted Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist Archie Moore and curator Ellie Buttrose in an intimate conversation about kith and kin, Archie’s globally acclaimed work soon to open in Brisbane. Winner of the 2024 Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, kith and kin will open at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) on 27 September 2025. It explores 65,000 years of Aboriginal history and intergenerational storytelling.
Archie spoke as a Kamilaroi/Bigambul man and artist who turned to our archives to trace, reimagine and honour his family history. What unfolded was not just an artist’s talk, but a deep and moving exploration of memory, loss, identity, and the role of archival records in uncovering evidence of the past.
His work begins with the typical Western approach to genealogy: the vertical and horizontal lines of a family tree. Then, it expands into a massive chalk-drawn tree of names, kinship terms, words and sounds, many rooted in Kamilaroi and Bigambul language. Some names were never recorded, reduced to colonial descriptions like “Joe’s gin” or “Girl taken west.” And yet, this tree holds them. It holds who could have been. It’s identity, visualised. It’s relational. It’s what colonisation tried to sever but never fully erased.
An audience member at the talk, who had seen kith and kin in Venice, described the space as “sacred.” I can only imagine. I can’t wait for mob to see it at QAGOMA from 27 September. This is our history. It’s time the world witnessed it too.
Archie also spoke about the stark contrast within the archives when comparing Indigenous and non-Indigenous lives. Non-Indigenous soldiers went to war and returned to land grants, while Aboriginal men came home to nothing. Records reflect this deliberate imbalance: detailed accounts of settler life set against scattered, partial, or missing stories of Aboriginal families. And yet, within those same records, Archie found traces of his Kamilaroi ancestors living on that land long before it was ever “gifted.” Two histories held side by side in the archive: one laid out in full detail; the other surviving through gaps, fragments, and memory. Archie recalled his uncle speaking language when he was a child. Something that only now, through this work, made full sense. It was one of those moments when a spirit comes back to you through a file, a photo, or a name.
We ended the session with a behind-the-scenes tour of one of our repositories, where our team brought out original records connected to Archie’s family. It was another piece in the puzzle. Like the family tree of kith and kin itself, the records raised more questions than answers. That is part of the journey.
kith and kin shows us what 65,000 years of kinship looks like. It holds space for loss, interruption, and survival. It reflects the systems that questioned our very way of life. But Archie made it clear: the archive is not just a colonial space. It’s also a place where spirit lives, where stories come home.
kith and kin will be on display at QAGOMA from 27 September 2025 to 18 October 2026.
