Ecologies of Color: probing the blues is an evolving series of workshop and writing installations guided by ongoing research and development of praxis with Indigo dye technologies.
Through Ecologies of Color we partner with various organizations and institutions to share the traditions of Indigo dye as expressed throughout the American South, Caribbean, and parts of Africa and Asia. Regarding this work as an ancestral practice, we aim to reclaim and restore that which survived attempts at both erasure and exploitation by returning it to its sacred origins.
Ecologies of Color hinges on the awareness that the Indigo dye process is facilitated by the expression of many elements within an ecosystem, hence the name of this project.
Ecologies of Color is also a phrase that invites us to consider what it means to be “of color” in a racialized reality while embracing the honorable beauty of being richly earth-hued. It is a prompt to recall that our “human condition” is a clear reflection of the state and beingness of our planet. As the palate and preference of modern design becomes increasingly neutral and gray, we utter an invocation for futures of color informed by the brilliant past and the vibrant presence of its wisdom.
CURRENT INQUIRY FOCUS: using bioregional, ancestral, and / or discarded food and herbs for Indigo reduction processes
To view past workshops and sign up for upcoming installations, click on the tabs within the “Ecologies of Color” folder.