Venice, 30 April. (askanews) – Telling the story of the First Nations peoples of Australia, who are among the oldest on Earth, to give a new perspective on history and remember the bonds of kinship that unite all human beings. The project for the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale, which received the Golden Lion for best international participation, talks about this. “I honestly didn’t expect it, but, of course, it’s a nice surprise,” artist Archie Moore, who created a vast mural and large installation capable of spanning thousands of years, told askanews.
“We go back to 65 thousand years ago – added Moore – but even just 3 thousand years ago we find a common ancestor to all human beings. I wanted to show that we are all connected on Earth by a greater network of kinship. And this was also the idea of the canal window: the water out there goes into the lagoon, then into the Atlantic Ocean and the rest of the world, including the Australian continent, and this is another way to show our connections.”
The aim of the “Kith and Kin” project is therefore also to talk about the desire for peace, respect and responsibility of each towards the other. A perspective that has always run through the artist’s works, as the curator of the Australian Pavilion, Ellie Buttrose, told us: “It is exactly Archie’s work – she said – who has an incredible history of ambitious installations, throughout his career . I came here to guide his vision and to make sure that his voice was heard in every part of the project.”
A project which, like all of Adriano Pedrosa’s Biennial, restores visibility to indigenous populations, to the stories that have often been passed over in silence, to the tragedies and violence they have had to suffer. “I wanted to give voice to these untold stories – concluded Archie Moore – thanks to the materials about my family that I found in the archive and that I didn’t know: this way I discovered new people and new stories. I wanted to give them a voice in front of an international audience like that of the Biennale.”
The Golden Lion seems to certify that the objective has been achieved.
