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12 September 2023 12:00 - 15:00

WORKSHOP | local color maps

researching together our local environment to uncover everyday color opportunities

On the 12th of September, we held the local color mapping workshop for HvA students from the minor sustainable futures. We went out into the Sarphati-park to gather different types of natural dye material. The participants collected leaves, flowers, soil, berries, and more. Eventually, we gathered together to test whether the samples they collected contained biochromes that you can dye with. Try it out yourself and download the leaflet below!

The 5 steps of explorative mapping:

EXPLORE – explore the surroundings to uncover our plant-blindness, and collect samples of biochromes

MAP – digitally and physically mapping provenience, to form data maps together

DOCUMENT – understanding the relation of the biochromes samples to the environment

EXPERIMENT – testing the samples for our assumptions, partly intuitively and partly guided by experts 

REFLECT – through field notes, assumptions, relations and reactions 

Through this activity, the local color team mapped the possible available biochromes in a park, together with a group of explorers.

The workshop’s aim was to uncover the “unseen” everyday color opportunities that surround us in the city, parks and in-between greens that are on our way every day, which we do not notice or see as possible sources of resources in the city.

Through the workshop kit, participants were invited to acknowledge their “plant-blindness” – which a term coined by two botanists in 1999 to address human unconscious cognitive behavior of “unseeing” the botanical reality that surrounds them. They were invited to see again, research intuitively with hands, and eyes, and feel the natural matter and its possible connections to the surroundings.