in a project that was exhibited during stockholm design week 2020, the kinship method explores how established designers can take inspiration from one another. the experiment brought together five creatives – margot barolo, andreas nobel, erik björk, mia cullin and fredrik paulsen – and essentially asked them to share their different ways of working to create something new.
all images © karin björkquist
the experiment began with each individual designing a chair. for the second stage of the kinship method, each chair moves on to the next designer, who in turn must use 20-40% of the chair’s style and design for a new chair. consequently, fragments, pieces and artistic expressions are inherited from the previous generation. everything is done under time pressure and with no insight into what the others are doing.
in the second stage, there are two designers involved and in the third, three. there are now three generations with a total of fifteen chairs that are related to each other. all of them are made by the producer mitab, the swedish furniture brand in different techniques and materials. some of the leatherwork is made by tärnsjö garveri.
each generation of chairs is followed by a group discussion, which is known as ‘design therapy’, where the team reflected on: ‘what happens to the style and design? what happens within us? what can we learn? does it create diversity, development or conformity?’ the resulting fifteen chairs show how they created new forms, which in turn changed their individual perspectives in many different ways.
project info:
project name: the kinship method
participant designers: margot barolo, andreas nobel, erik björk, mia cullin, fredrik paulsen
discussion leader: salka hallström bornhold
visual communication: samira bouabana
photography: karin björkquist
designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.
edited by: lynne myers | designboom
