Design Map · Eindhoven
Grafting Kinship
Graduation project by Emilia Doohan at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
How might the family tree evolve to include the relationships we choose rather than inherit? ‘Grafting Kinship’ is a live performance exploring how kinship might be reimagined beyond the rigid branches of the family tree. Prompted by the designer’s ancestral research, the work responds to the need to articulate forms of belonging that extend beyond strict, biological lineage. Developed through archival, botanical, and auto-theoretical research, the project introduces ‘Knowledge Grafting’, Doohan’s own methodology, which builds from arboreal intelligence frameworks to recontextualise the family tree, attempting to ‘queer’ or ‘evolve’ this archaic kinship structure. The work reimagines the family tree not as a symbol of fixed lineage, but as an entity that can connect, communicate, evolve and graft. A dance duet, accompanied by spoken word, embodies this more expansive model of family by materialising this ‘grafting’ methodology as a contact-improvisation dance performance.