Mia Khin Boe: The Aboriginal Robot

In Mia Khin Boe’s dystopian future, scientists use data extracted from DNA and sacred sites to create the Aboriginal Robot. Known as The Dreaming Machine, this robot is designed to repair our mistakes and take care of an environment that has been forcibly neglected and exploited since first arrival. Once consciousness forms however, the Dreaming Machine discovers who is responsible and begins a revolution.

This exhibition expands Mia Khin Boe’s science fiction story The Aboriginal Robot, first presented at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in 2024. Developed in collaboration with April Widdup at Canberra Glassworks, the exhibition leans into the science fiction aesthetic of the figurine, bringing its speculative world into material form. Through flame-worked glass sculpture, canvas painting and window painting, the lore of The Aboriginal Robot unfolds across the university walls. Boe imagines a future in which technology, Country and consciousness converge, transforming this science fiction story into a message of resistance, responsibility and urgency.

Mia Khin Boe is an artist whose cultural inheritances and disinheritances are the focus of her work. Of Butchulla and Burmese descent, her art offers an oblique response to the historical and ongoing colonial violence inflicted upon the lands and peoples of these cultures. Born on Yuggera/Turrbal Country, Brisbane, and now living on the lands of the Kulin Nation in Melbourne, Boe is concerned with uncovering ignored, forgotten, and denied realities, often moving between social realism and speculative fiction to imagine futures lost.

Boe’s reflexive approach to image-making frequently draws on stories of family to explore the poles of connection and loneliness, imbuing her painting, installation, sculpture and printmaking with a poetic and deeply personal resonance. Representations of the figure as elongated and unworldly embody these familial stories, whereby Boe situates both spirit and human form in stylised environments reflecting the extremity of experience.

Boe is represented by Sutton Gallery and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.

Presented as part of Canberra Art Biennial in partnership with ANU School of Cybernetics and Drill Hall Gallery.

Art Bite: Thursday 1 October, 1:15pm
ANU Birch Building, Science Rd, Acton
Free to attend, no bookings required

As part of Canberra Art Biennial we are fortunate to have artist Mia Khin Boe join us to discuss The Aboriginal Robot, 2026, a painting and sculpture work installed in the ANU Birch Building.