From that information Tindale mapped out a family tree in a Western anthropological fashion, Moore said. “It shows the comparison of the linear, Western idea of lineage, to the vast and complex relatedness of an Aboriginal kinship system.”

Moore has left gaps – literal black holes – to represent massacres, the introduction of deadly diseases, and the destruction of cultural and linguistic knowledge.

The structure of his sprawling family tree upends the idea of there being original ancestors, an Adam and Eve in the Christian tradition. “There is no beginning to point to – rather Archie shows the vast abyss of time from which life springs,” said curator Ellie Buttrose.

“By researching his family Archie demonstrates his connection to one of the longest-continuous cultures in the world and declares his sovereignty and the sovereignty of his people. By tracing back thousands of years he also shows how everyone on Earth has common ancestors, a reminder that we are all kin.”

Among the many kinship names recorded in kith and kin, Moore also includes pejorative names given to Aboriginal people, sometimes appearing in media reports and official government correspondence, from picaninnie, to full blood, old Mary, and half-caste.

A reflection pool has been built in the pavilion’s centre over which more than 500 document stacks have been suspended.

These contain mainly coronial inquests on the deaths of Indigenous Australians in police custody dated in Moore’s lifetime.

With its use of chalk and chalkboards, the work references educational materials from Moore’s childhood, Buttrose said. “He was only taught about Australian colonial history and nothing about the continent’s First Nations history. The artwork shows how First Nations history and knowledge exceeds the limits of standard educational forms.”

The chart affirmed the status of Australia’s Indigenous people as custodians of some of the longest-continuous living cultures in the world, and the sharp decline in First Nation’s languages, she said.

“Extending across the Pavilion’s black ceiling, the inscribed names resemble a celestial map; evoking the ancestors’ resting place. In the First Nations Australian understanding of time, past, present and future are co-present,” she said.

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Asked what he wanted audiences to take away from the exhibition, Moore said it was to “show the strength and vastness of First Nations Australian kinship and history, which has survived in spite of colonisation and will continue into the future”.

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