The Material Kinship Reader: Material Beyond Extraction and Kinship Beyond the Nuclear Family

The Material Kinship Reader explores the extractivist histories of materials and the social relations that frame contemporary life, expanding the idea of an artists book by bringing words into conversation with an aesthetic proposition. It tells toxic and tender stories of interdependence among all things sentient and insentient, and includes contributions by Sara Ahmed, Hana Pera Aoake, Roland Barthes, Joannie Baumgärtner, Heather Davis, Kris Dittel, Clementine Edwards, Ama Josephine B. Johnstone, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ursula K. Le Guin, Sophie Lewis, Steven Millhauser, Jena Myung, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Michelle Murphy, Ada M. Patterson, Kim TallBear and Michelle Tea. It is a constellation of crumbs, treasure together in a vibrating field, and is about what it means to locate family in provisional formats, textures and arrangements, and the focused and felt reciprocity with the small stuffs that touch us.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 480 pages
Publication date: 05 September 2022
Publisher: Onomatopee

The Material Kinship Reader is a captivating exploration of the ways in which we can acknowledge our closeness to, enmeshment in, or even kinship with the material world. It also challenges family structures and explores alternative possibilities of kin-making. The book brings together fiction and theory, expanding the idea of an artist's book by incorporating words into a visual proposition. Clementine Edwards' artwork serves as the visual weft to the book's written net, weaving together stories of interdependence among all sentient and insentient things. The book covers a range of topics, from colonial conquest to climate collapse, and tells toxic and tender stories of interdependence. Contributors include Sara Ahmed, Hana Pera Aoake, Roland Barthes, Joannie Baumgärtner, Heather Davis, Kris Dittel, Clementine Edwards, Ama Josephine B. Johnstone, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ursula K. Le Guin, Sophie Lewis, Steven Millhauser, Jena Myung, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Michelle Murphy, Ada M. Patterson, Kim TallBear, and Michelle Tea. The book offers a beguiling orrery of ways of thinking, making, and relating, far from the shores of alienation. It tugs at and thinks kinship beyond "recognition", exploring a humming spectrum of becoming all kinds. Marina Vishmidt describes the book as a "wonderful addition to the conversation about materialism and how we might live on after capitalism". The book brings together a sharp selection of core texts that have made key offerings to the dialogue, with brilliant new theoretical and artistic interventions. The book is stitched together with Clementine's artwork, creating a visually stunning and thought-provoking experience.

Weight: 278g
Dimension: 276 x 164 x 34 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9789493148789