Kith and kin. Friends and neighbours. Yet so much more. Infinitely deeper. When an artist and an architect come together to collaborate on the design of a home for an artwork, the possibilities are endless. When the artwork itself charts thousands of years of familial and Indigenous cultural history, the home the work will reside in becomes considerably more than a functional structure.
Archie Moore’s kith and kin was commissioned by Creative Australia and curated by Ellie Buttrose as Australia’s representative work at La Biennale de Venezia 2024. The work, which won the prestigious Golden Lion award for best national pavilion has now been acquired by the Australian Government and will be gifted to the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, and Tate, London.
A work of two parts, Kith and kin is the culmination and continuation of years of interrogation into Moore’s own identity and is, in and of itself, a phenomenal piece of art. Using the concept of the family tree as a mode of visual representation of the deep, far-reaching familial and spiritual connection that exists between all Indigenous Australians, this hand-drawn network of names covers the black pavilion walls. This written tapestry envelops a central memorial to First Nations people who have died in custody. To say that the work is powerful, affective and effective is to put it lightly.
The challenge of how to present such a personal story on a large, immersive scale, not to mention in Italy, more than 14 thousand kilometres away from Australia, is perhaps one of the biggest challenges Moore and Buttrose faced. Enter Kevin O’Brien — Moore’s long-time collaborator and ‘on-call’ architect.
Principal at BVN, O’Brien is not only an exceptionally accomplished architect, he has also been a passionate leader of BVN’s Designing with Country strategy. However, O’Brien’s business credentials have little to do with what brought these two creative powerhouses together. As Moore says, in his casual, measured and considered manner, which belies the true weight of the artwork he creates: “It was art that brought us together.” With a cheeky smile, O’Brien adds, “Brisbane is a small place, eh? But we’ve got some big hitters. Everyone sort of knows each other.” Sharing a knowing glance between Microsoft Teams screens, Moore adds, “Yeah, and the art scene is even smaller.”
Talking with Moore and O’Brien about the creative work they do together feels like an immense privilege. Not simply because both men are locally and globally recognised and highly regarded, but because talking with them is to bear witness to a genuine friendship and creative partnership that brings powerful, essential work to life.
As far as Moore and O’Brien can recall, the first time they officially worked together as artist and architect was in 2016 on Moore’s piece A Home Away From Home (Bennelong/Vera’s Hut), shown at the 20th Biennale of Sydney. “The idea for this work was to recreate Bennelong’s hut, which was originally built in 1790 by Governor Arthur Phillip for Woollarawarre Bennelong,” Moore says. “Bennelong was a significant Aboriginal figure around Sydney, a diplomatic figure between White Australia and Black Australia. The theme of the Biennale was about embassies, and I saw Bennelong’s hut as an embassy space.”
Because there are no images on record of Bennelong’s hut, all Moore had to go off to inform the recreation were written descriptions. While an artist can and must take creative leaps, finding and drawing connections between touchpoints to bridge past and present, truthfully recreating a building that once occupied physical space requires more than artistry alone.
So, Moore called O’Brien. Over the course of numerous conversations, the pair worked out key architectural elements of the hut, such as the length and height of the walls, and the placement of the hut’s single window. “Kevin gave advice on where the window would have been located. This was important because we had to think about how light would have entered the hut from sunrise to sunset,” Moore recalls.
“The positioning of the hut on the site, and the window were very deliberate,” O’Brien says. “When you went inside the hut, Archie wanted the window to frame the view, which looks out to the Sydney Opera House. The placement and scale of the window gave a really compressed view of the Opera House, and it almost feels like the Opera House is bowing to it [the hut]. You usually see the Opera House in a long elevation, but seen through the window of Bennelong’s hut, it’s like the Opera House is paying homage to Bennelong.”
This reflection on their first collaboration might seem to suggest that Moore and O’Brien — as artist and architect — are artistic creative partners. However, O’Brien is very conscious to point out that he is “not an artist”. “It’s Archie’s project, he’s the artist. He’s the one doing the steering and driving. I’m in the back seat, just throwing my ten cents over the seat every now and then. I see myself as acting in service of the project and what he’s trying to get to.”
None of this is to say that O’Brien doesn’t gain a great amount of satisfaction, not to mention have a bit of fun through being unburdened by the necessary rigour of architecture. When asked whether Moore’s artistic way of thinking and seeing the world flows into his architectural practice, O’Brien pauses for a moment. “Yes and no,” he says. “Yes, because the reason I love working on the odd art thing with Archie is that he is very clear about the idea of the thing, which arises through his research or through his memory. The intent for every one of Archie’s projects is crystal clear from the beginning. But, as an architect, we get caught up in the professional delivery of the technical and legal and structural aspects of a building. Doing projects for Archie is a reminder about having a clear intent. How I think about space and volumes in the creative sense of architecture are quite different.”
While Moore’s clarity of concept and his ultimate artistic vision are clear from the moment he picks up the phone or meets up with O’Brien for a beer at their go-to local live music bar — where Moore also performs in his “subtropical goth” band — it’s evident that Moore, too, has a deep respect for O’Brien. “When we got notice that we were successful, myself and the curator, Ellie Buttrose, started thinking about who we wanted to be involved in realising the work in the Pavillion. Kevin was one of those people. I went to him for valuable advice on how to approach the space,” Moore recalls.
The relationship between Moore and O’Brien is so much more than a meeting of minds. It is one of kinship. Both Moore and O’Brien share the generational trauma that all First Nations peoples share. Both know first-hand what it feels like to be overlooked, underestimated, or worse. This uncomfortable and disquieting common history — for non-Indigenous people — enables the duo to just know what the other means.
“When Archie described how he wanted the inside of Bennelong’s hut to feel and smell, conjuring a memory of his grandmother’s hut, I knew automatically what that meant. I knew immediately that it had a pungent smell of kerosene [and] that there was no electricity. I could feel it,” O’Brien says. “I don’t think he [Moore] could give that brief to someone without our cultural background as they wouldn’t understand it.”
This intrinsic, almost cellular knowing about where the other comes from certainly contributes to the success of their collaborative partnership. Again, the potent combination of shared histories and being leaders in their respective fields came into play with kith and kin.
The Australia Pavilion, designed by Denton Corker Marshall, is itself an award-winner, making it an even more fitting space for the expression of Moore’s Golden Lion-winning work. However, the quintessential white cube gallery exhibition space presented a multifaceted provocation for Moore, and, by extension, O’Brien.
Moore’s vision for kith and kin was to do more than show and tell. He wanted people to feel. He wanted to leave an indelible mark on each visitor’s heart and mind. Functioning on multiple levels, the work stands as a shrine or memorial, a space for contemplation and reflection, where the personal collides with the universal.
To achieve this, Moore and O’Brien worked on multiple interventions within the pavilion envelope to achieve the desired feeling. One of the most poignant was the table, upon which thousands of copies of redacted court reports and coronial inquest documents to Indigenous deaths in custody were piled up.
The table, designed by O’Brien, occupies the centre of the space and appears to levitate above a mirror-still pool of water. “The documents needed to float. It was essential that they were given gravitas, says O’Brien. “We wanted them to be just out of reach. The height of the table and its position in the pool of water means that when people approached them, they had to bow down to read them. They’re just out of reach, which is related to the fact that so many First Nations people are denied access to their family histories.”
Expanding on the work, Moore adds: “It’s also a map of networks of relatedness between us all. Indigenous people consider the land and features of the land, and every living thing on the land, to be part of the kinship system. It [kith and kin] also talks about the idea of caring for the land and caring for each other. It’s about respect between one another.”
Moore and O’Brien’s working relationship, and the outcomes of their collaboration, go far beyond the typical. While they humbly downplay what they do and the way that they do it, together, the artist and architect are greater than the sum of their parts. In a post-colonial era, when we all have so much to learn and so much growth to do individually and collectively, we can and must learn from them what kith and kin were, are and could be.
This article originally appeared in issue 120 of inside magazine. Grab your copy here