It Felt Like My Body Was a Weapon (I Couldn’t Help It): Kyle Archie Knight

It Felt Like My Body Was a Weapon (I Couldn’t Help It) aims to examine the gay male gaze, while catering to it, performing it, and questioning it. A culmination of gay experience, particularly within gay internet culture, whereby salacious imagery is often mistakenly interpreted as a warrant for sexual advancement. Objects of lust, the act of cruising, and the tension between wanting to be desired, while not expressly handing it over are explored within the subsequent works.

Kyle Archie Knight is an Indigenous and queer photographic artist and writer based in Naarm (Melbourne). Knight’s keen interest in the mundane and humdrum suburbia of Naarm resulted in his highly commended long-form and ongoing project, ‘Cruising for a Bruising’. With this project, he was a highly commended finalist in the Ballarat International Foto Biennale 2022 GradFoto exhibition and subsequently a core program artist in the 10th Ballarat International Foto Biennale (2023) with a solo exhibition. In 2026, the latest iteration of this project is currently being exhibited at The Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh), with a solo exhibition. Knight’s exhibitions include ‘Some Kind of Heaven’ (a duet with J Davies), Notfair Artfair, ‘Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits’ at RMIT Gallery, ‘de-centre re-centre’ at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery for Perth Festival, ‘NAIDOC Week' at MARS Gallery, and ‘New Photographers’ at Daine Singer Gallery, as part of PHOTO 2024.

As well as various group shows at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Spring1883 Art Fair, Melbourne Fringe Festival, and Unassigned Gallery. In 2026, he was part of the judging committee for the 2026 Australian and New Zealand Photobook Awards. In 2025, he completed a First Nations led creative mentorship at Footscray Community Arts. In 2024, he was a creative resident at the Centre for Contemporary Photography. Knight’s debut photobook, ‘Cruising for a Bruising’, was published in 2023 by M.33 and subsequently shortlisted in the 2024 Australian and New Zealand Photobook Awards.

Knight graduated from RMIT University with a Bachelor of Arts (Photography) (Honours) Honours First Class. Alongside his artistic practice, Knight is also known for his work as an editorial and commercial photographer.