Design Map · Eindhoven
The inheritors' house: objects in question
Graduation project by Rosie Vermeylen at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
An ivory statue and an elephant tusk sat quietly among the furniture in Rosie Vermeylen’s grandparents’ house. Familiar family objects can carry a history of colonial extraction that becomes harder to see with each generation. Rosie researched colonial artefacts across three family homes. She brought selected objects together in a house-like installation, using her own family history as a starting point.
A book accompanying the installation describes the objects and asks questions that move from personal experience to broader questions of colonial history. What is your country of origin, and does it have a colonial past? Can complicity be transferred between generations? Visitors are invited to discuss these questions and record their thoughts. Intended for museums as a space for reflection after ethnographic exhibitions, the installation turns the focus towards visitors’ own inherited histories. As it travels, their responses accumulate into a growing archive of reflections on colonial inheritance.