Brighton
Symposium
Indigo:
global perspectives
I
was one of a large gathering at Brighton for the Indigo Symposium on October
13th, which was held in conjunction with the exhibition on indigo currently
on show at Brighton and Hove Museums. More on the exhibition here.
The show will be travelling to the US in 2008. Details of the Washington
show here.
A
very distinguished set of speakers assembled to present short papers on
various aspects of indigo research and practise.
Jenny
Balfour Paul, who had been the instigator and organiser of the
Symposium was, sadly, unable to be there on the day to oversee the proceedings
and give her paper Indigo, a global commodity: spice trade, slavery
and shipwrecks.
However,
since the Symposium, Jenny has sent me two images and some related information
about shipwreck indigo to include here - for which I am immensely grateful.
Above:
Samples of wool and calico dyed by Jenny Balfour Paul in 2007 with indigo
recovered from the wreck of a famous Spanish galleon, Nuestra Señora
de la Concepción.
Above:
Jenny Balfour Paul dyeing with the shipwreck indigo
Nuestra Señora de la Concepción was
the flagship of the plate fleet that sank off the Caribbean Turks Islands
in 1641 when returning to Spain from Mexico. It was first discovered by
the famous diving expedition of Sir William Phips in 1687, but then lay
on the seabed for almost three centuries. Burt Webber’s expedition
rediscovered the wreck in 1980. As well as the silver treasure on board,
the ship was transporting in ironwood chests a large and valuable cargo
of indigo (and also cochineal dye), produced on slave plantations in Central
America. Some of this indigo was found by diver Carl Fismer, whose hands
turned blue when he was picking up silver pieces-of-eight from the seabed.
Thanks to Caribbean wreck diver Carl Fismer and Rex
Cowan, UK-based expert on the archaeology of dyestuffs from historic shipwrecks;
and special thanks to Jenny Balfour Paul for allowing me to use her images
The
Symposium : some notes from the day
After
a welcome from Sarah Posey, Head of Collections and Interpretation, Royal
Pavilion, Libraries and Museums, Brighton, Dr Jennifer
Harris took over the opening slot from Jenny Balfour Paul.
The
following are personal commentaries and are neither comprehensive nor
exhaustive: I was much too interested in the images to take a huge amount
of notes!
Dr Jennifer Harris, curator of Indigo:
A Blue to Dye For gave an introduction to the very long- term planning
that had gone into setting up the exhibition which she had undertaken
with consultant curator Jenny Balfour Paul. The exhibition opened at the
Whitworth Gallery in Manchester and has since toured to Plymouth (where
I saw it for the first time). It is at Brighton and Hove Museums until
2008.
Dr Harris said that varying demands and restrictions
of the three / four planned venues were a key consideration in planning
so flexibility in content, design and display was vital. The exhibition
was planned in 7 main sections and key textile pieces from many sources
were selected to illustrate various themes and ideas. Contextual information
or images were not generally included so that the textiles themselves
could hold the viewing focus. The exhibition was planned to centre on
art, craft and design rather than ethnography.
It was interesting to see the images of the exhibition
from the Whitworth show and Dr Harris described the layout there as circular
so that one could "flow" (my word) through the different sections.
I had particularly liked the unintrusive and very "clean" exhibition
design of displays, stands etc when I saw the show at Plymouth. These
were the work of a Brighton-based exhibition designer whose name, unfortunately,
I haven't accurately noted.
The installation by Hiroyuko Shindo looked wonderfully
powerful in the image from the Manchester show and was displayed there
in a large covered space which curiously included an old exterior wall.
This work takes on a different emphasis wherever it is shown, due to light,
space and context.
Philip John's humorous and thus very
accessible delivery of the research into the chemistry of the medieval
woad vat was fascinating. In studying dye techniques in the lab (at Reading
University), an unknown strain of clostridium was identified and named
(clostridium isatadis). It was also confirmed that the traditional
addition of madder had a chemically-provable beneficial effect on fermentation.
Using woad-dyed fabrics from Viking York, it could be shown that the Viking
process was largely the same as the lab version and that the clostridium
strain found in the York samples was nearly identical. As Professor John
drily observed, hospitals do not need reminding how long clostridium can
remain active.
His brief analysis of current work on sustainability
threw up some interesting facts connected to this issue. Marks and Spencer
is a founder member of the RITE
group, "a new industry association which aims to provide advice
and fact based information to minimise the negative environmental impact
of the production, use and disposal of textiles and apparel."
I noted that M&S is responsible for 1% of UK carbon
emissions (but I am not sure how this is assessed as so much of what they
sell is produced abroad). In addition, Professor John stated that 80%
of any textile's carbon footprint is generated after sale - eg in washing
etc! M&S is currently promoting the 30C wash for all its textiles.
Professor John brought up the subject of the "shipwreck"
indigo sample that was offered to Jenny Balfour Paul from a 16th Century
wreck in the Caribbean. (There are samples of fabric she dyed with it
in the foyer at Brighton Museum, and an image at the top of this account.)
On the Midweek interview (listen again here)
she said it made the best blue she had ever dyed. As a result of a question
from the Symposium audience as to why this should be, Professor John was
offered a sample to analyse by the archaeologist responsible, who was
also in the audience. I apologise for not having noted his full name,
but his first name is, very appropriately, Rex•. I hope we will
somehow hear about the results of this study.
• I have since found out his name is Rex
Cowan.
More next column...
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Noorjehan Bilgrami spoke
of the indigo-dyed fabrics of the Indus Valley which have been produced
for thousands of years - and threatened to disappear within one generation.
She showed us images of ajrak, the beautiful blue (indigo) and red (madder)
traditional handblocked Sindhi textile which has held an almost sacred
status in daily life. In order to help preserve the ajrak tradition, she
had set up KOEL, a workshop pioneering the revival of handblocked fabrics
in Pakistan. We also saw images of indigo fields and the indigo fermentation
process in the Miani area, 100 km from Karachi. The intricacy and precision
of blockmakers' skill was illustrated as well as some simple and stunning
images of the individual printed motifs. I was reminded of Art in Action
in July where the processes undertaken by the blockprinter from Kutch
(see below) seem similar. A map of the ancient civilisations of the Indus
Valley, whch include the Kutch area, here
Above:
Irfan Anwar, master block printer and natural dyer from Kutch: NB not
an image from the Symposium
Dominique Cardon gave an account of
research into Latin American dyes and dyers of indigo where she
detailed the "emergency measures" in force to document dyeing
(and dying) techniques. She commented that similar research as that undertaken
by Professor John is urgently needed for every plant and dye process in
her and her students' field of study. Some of the blues produced in Latin
American dyes studied have a high indigotin content but no local plant
is actually known to produce the dye. She stressed that it is the process
that is in such urgent need of research, as well as the plants themselves.Many
of the dye techniques incorporate other plants, such as willow, Mexican
elder and Buddleia and their functions in the processes are not currently
understood.
In her paper, Ms Cardon mentioned Maya Blue in a passing
reference. I have read a little about this in her book - but there is
more here.
Hiroyuko Shindo outlined his early passion
for indigo and described himself as an art student going in the wrong
direction to his contemporaries in the '60s- looking back into the traditions
of the past rather then outside Japan to the culture of America and the
West. As well as showing images he had made delightful diagrammatic illustrations
of his fermentation process, his method of making lye and the layout of
his several vats. I was interested to hear his account of taking fabric
from the weaker vat to the stronger in successive immersions. In the question-and-answer
session Mr Shindo was very generous in his explanations of specific techniques
and when complemented on this he smiled and said, "I have no secrets".
He was asked if he had an apprentice to carry on his
work and he replied that there was no-one. "I hope..," he said,
shrugging his shoulders rather sadly.
John Picton's paper was entitled Adire,
Ankara and Kampala: indigo and resist-dyed textiles in 20th-century Nigeria.
He introduced this by displaying his late mother-in-law's blue tablecloth.
My recollection is that the cloth was not true adire, but was
printed to resemble it. The complexities of design, technique, imitation
of one technique by another and various cross-influences that John Picton
described have become somewhat confused in my notes. This is because I
soon started to draw some of the wonderful motifs on the cloths as he
whizzed them up in front of us on the big screen, and I stopped writing.
Just as well I don't have an exam to pass.
I do remember him saying that the attempts of the Dutch
to imitate batik and sell in the Indonesian market failed in the Far East
but met with success in West Africa. There were some very strange and
unlikely motifs in the Dutch work, and it came as no surprise that the
sober landscape of Dutch countryside held very little cultural resonance
for West Africans. However, other motifs appeared to meet with success
almost by accident and the Dutch eventually responded to West African
interests by adapting to local demand. It was the new design forms emerging
from new influences that have been given the names Kamala and
Angkara.
Adire was originally a tradition based on the
renewal of tired garments and now it is possible to buy cheap new garments
in the market place and traditional garments are less worn, the technique
creates little demand. Adire is now restricted to one remaining
workshop, that of Nike Davis in South West Nigeria.
NB The spelling of Ankara or Angkara
isn't clear from the official documentation and the paper given so don't
take my word for it.
Erica Just was offered a few minutes
to describe her indigo-related efforts to raise money for digging a well
in the Sahel area of Mali. Her impressive campaign has raised the initial
money and she now requires a further financial boost to allow troughs
to be built beside the wells so animals can also drink. Her website, Art
for Water, is here.
I have a strange story about Erica. Long before I ever
met her, I saw her name ahead of ours in the village "visitors' book"
in a remote traditional village in West Sumba, Indonesia. I just (sorry,
pun inevitable) happened to remember her name. Several months later I
met an Erica Just on an indigo weekend, studying with Jenny Balfour Paul,
and it was the same person. I suppose there are many roads, all leading
to the same place!
At very short notice Professor Lou Taylor
gave us a whistle-stop tour of indigo (using printed resist) in Eastern
Europe. Her interest in indigo began many years ago in the 60s as an enterprising
fashion student on a research project in Poland. She and I must be of
a similar vintage, and I couldn't have imagined myself having had the
courage to go off and do anything similar back then.
I particularly liked her story of the itinerant pedlars
who visited the villages (in years well-gone-by) with the patterned blocks
for the dyers to choose and use, and her theory that they may have been
Jewish. I am not clear whether the pedlars printed the cloth in the village
there and then and left with their blocks, or if they sold the blocks.
I shall try to find out.
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