Participatory artistic research
Reconnecting people with the ecological and cultural histories embedded in the materials around us.
We live in a time of environmental toxicity, ecological loss, and increasing distance from the origins of the materials we use every day. Colour, once derived from plants, minerals, insects, and landscapes, is now often experienced as an industrial product detached from the living systems and histories that produced it.
My artistic practice asks what might change if we encountered colour differently.
Working with locally sourced plants, natural pigments, collective painting, moving image, and publishing, I create collaborative formats that invite people to rediscover colour as a living material. Through making together, participants explore relationships between plants, place, memory, and material culture, while tracing the layered histories carried by everyday colours.
These projects create space to slow down, observe, make, and imagine more reciprocal relationships with the more-than-human world.
01Participants begin by gathering or identifying local plants. Together, we explore the ecological characteristics of the surrounding environment, the traditional knowledge associated with local species, and the cultural histories embedded in the landscape. Each plant becomes a starting point for understanding the interconnected histories of people, place, and ecology.
02Plant material is transformed into colour through hands-on extraction, testing, and mixing. Participants compare tones, stability, and texture while learning how different ingredients and methods affect pigment behaviour.
03Using the pigments they have made, participants create both individual and collective paintings. This stage connects material experimentation with gesture, emotion, memory, and group composition.
04Paintings are sequenced into stop-motion animation, turning static images into a shared moving narrative. The final film preserves multiple gestures and viewpoints while documenting how ideas evolved through the workshop.
These workshops are designed to help people reconnect with materials in a more attentive, grounded, and joyful way.
Through gathering plants, making pigments, painting, and animation, participants build practical skills while developing a deeper sense of where colour comes from, how it is made, and how it relates to place, labour, and ecology.
Most importantly, the process creates space for curiosity, care, and collaboration. Participants often leave with new material confidence, stronger ecological awareness, and concrete methods they can continue using in their own artistic or educational contexts.
Contact
Workshops are adapted to your participants, programme, and local context. Formats include 2-3 hour introductions, one-day workshops, and 3-4 day laboratories.
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