kith and kin

Artists

Archie Moore

Press release

National Participation - Australia

“The phrase ‘kith and kin’ simply means friends and family but an earlier Old English definition for Kith dates from the 1300s and originally meant ‘countrymen’ (kith also meant ‘one’s native land’) and Kin: ‘family members’. These words gradually took on the present looser sense: friends and family. Many Indigenous Australians, especially those who grew up on Country, see the land and other living things as part of their kinship system – the land itself can be a mentor, teacher, parent to a child. (…) I was interested in the phrase as it aptly describes the artwork in the Pavilion, but I was also interested in the Old English meaning of the words as it feels more like a First Nations understanding of attachment to place, people and time.” Archie Moore

Commissioner: Creative Australia
Curator: Ellie Buttrose