A complex story of family history is woven through Nadiah Bamadhaj’s unique charcoal-based works in Kin 2024. Born and raised in her father’s home country of Malaysia, Bamadhaj was educated in her mother’s birth country Aotearoa New Zealand and now lives in Indonesia. Her practice is deeply informed by notions of belonging and movement between these cultural contexts, as well as the sociopolitical ideologies that shape them. Kin is a family portrait with each figure clothed in batik adorned with different symbols and caught in mid-flight as a general motif for the family’s experience of migration.

The Albatross, dedicated to her father, references the idiom ‘an albatross around your neck’ to acknowledge the trials he faced in his life, as well as the birthplace of Bamadhaj’s mother in Aotearoa New Zealand. In Migrant, featuring outlines of her mother’s birth country, the artist considers the meaning of migrating – both through geographies and traversing the many roles her mother played.

In depicting herself and her siblings, Bamadhaj draws on the fractures of their lives, including the untimely death of her brother. Dissected Heart, adorned with heart motifs, is a tribute to her brother who was killed in the Dili Massacre in 1991, while Sliced, a portrait of Bamadhaj’s sister, carries the motif of a razor blade with a keyhole, signalling the impact of trauma. Representing the artist herself, The Unmentionable Child’s Toy depicts a doll with overtly racialised features, further grappling with Bamadhaj’s notions of identity and belonging.