Genealogies are not only about tracing lines of descent; they are also about recognizing the interconnections, the friendships, and the alliances that we forge in the world. […]
We will have to learn to live in the cracks of things. In the broken places. It is there, in the seemingly inconsequential and the overlooked, that life thrives. And it is there that we must learn to cohabit with the earth, to share space with what is other than human, to be undone in each other’s presence».
— Bayo Akomolafe, These Wilds Beyond Our Fences (2017)
Making Kin: A year-long journey of encounters, experiences, and reflections on what it means to build kinship today.
An intentional and creative act that goes beyond biological ties to forge meaningful relationships between humans, non-humans, and more-than-humans. This exploration seeks to rethink relationships through an ecological and intersectional lens, fostering new forms of coexistence and collaboration—where interdependence and alliance replace division and exclusion.
“Staying with the trouble”
Our previous exploration of convivialism ↗ was directly connected to the housing crisis in Milan—part of a broader international context of instability and social fragmentation.
Across the world, social bonds have frayed, while biological kinship has fueled ethnic and religious conflicts, underscoring the urgency of reimagining relationships beyond the historical and ideological frameworks that have long dehumanized the “other.”
Making kin is also an invitation to rethink how we relate across generations and genders.
BASE will explore alliances that are no longer based on familial or speciesist ties, but on conscious choices, shared affinities, common interests, and mutual care. This means building relationships not through blood, but through kinship—a practice of care, recognition, and difference—creating intergenerational and intersectional networks that challenge traditional hierarchies and systems of oppression.
The new kinships proposed by BASE are acts of creative resistance, seeking to move beyond the exclusivity of biological bonds to embrace relationships of choice and co-creation.