Kleurstof: To Dye For

摘要

By the time you've wandered through the yard of Textiel Museum in the architecturally fascinating Dutch city of Tilburg, you've already been given a preview of the dye-plants that form some of the exhibition within. Artist Nan Groot Antink was inspired by her grandmother's stories of Tilburg's textile factory workers, who carried their urine to work to facilitate the binding of dye to cloth. Along with garden designer Maaike Bertens, she collaborated with local residents to create this welcoming dye garden as a starting point for the interesting, participatory projects that later developed. The exhibition itself spanned several well-curated rooms, each devoted to the exploration of a colour, its botanic dyestuffs and the artists and craftspeople who explore the hue. The first exhibit is inevitably engaging to all; a pair of jeans. This iconic garment is something that connects almost everyone to textiles, regardless of age, gender or location - jeans are worn across the world. It detailed the harmful processes that are routinely used to make a pair of jeans and showed garment workers in Bangladesh working with toxic dyes, along with a river that's been heavily poisoned by the textile industry. This starting point should engage all visitors on the fundamentally important topic of textile sustainability. The first space celebrated beautiful blue alternatives; indigo, woad and bluewood, and illuminated their complex histories. It also showcased recent innovations in bacterial dye, which can elicit clean lilacs and purples and is currently being used by popular sportswear brands. The yellow room was fresh and depicted craftspeople working with turmeric, seaweed, chestnut and weeds. The combination of images, textiles, installation and video was particularly engaging.