Living Blue

Living Blue wins Wenner-Gren Grant.

The Living Blue project has won one of the prestigious 2014 Wenner-Gren Foundation International Collaborative Research Grants to study the role of designers in the shifting cultural meanings of indigo dyes in contemporary China and India.

In the project, Dori Tunstall, HangHai, V. Sakthivel, and Karen Hughes will conduct two field study trips and two Design Anthropology workshops. During each field study trip, the partners will spend four weeks at indigo dyeing and weaving field sites in Uravakonda, Andhra Pradesh and Damadka, Kutch, Gujarat, India (October-November 2014) and in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, China (September-October 2015).

Framed by the emerging discipline of Design Anthropology (e.g. how design translates values into experience with which people can directly respond), the purpose of the field research is to evaluate the use of Design Anthropology approaches in India and China. Specifically, the project explores the experiences of those who produce and use indigo dyes, as affected by designers, in order to determine the gap between the values expressed and the people’s contemporary lived experiences. The project seeks to use this knowledge to define India and China specific Design Anthropologies.

The two workshops will consists of a four-week intensive with two learning modules: one focused on research methods and one on critical theory. The first workshop will be held at National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India in May 2015. The second will be held at China Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing, China from mid-October to mid-November 2015. The purpose of these workshops are to train a total of 48 design and anthropology postgraduate students across China and India (24 per country) in design anthropological theory and methods. The overall goal of this international collaborative research proposal is to be able to characterise the theoretical field of Design Anthropology as decolonising and global.

Blue Colour Terms in Chinese, English, and Telugu 蓝色字在中文,英文,及泰卢固文

blue - 蓝色 lán sè   బ్ blū  

sapphire - 宝石蓝  bǎoshí lán  నీలం nīlaṁ

azure - 湛蓝 zhànlán  నీలం nīlaṁ   

cerulean - 蔚蓝 wèilán  నీలం nīlaṁ

cobalt - 深蓝 shēnlán  ముదురు నీలం muduru nīlaṁ      

indigo- 紫蓝 zǐ lán    ఊదా నీలం ūdā nīlaṁ

navy - 藏青 zàngqīng  ముదురు నీలం muduru nīlaṁ      

royal - 宝蓝 bǎolán  నీలం నీలం nīlaṁ nīlaṁ

baby blue - 浅蓝 qiǎn lán  లేత నీలం lēta nīlaṁ              

cyan - 蓝绿 lán lǜ  నీలి ఆకుపచ్చ nīli ākupacca

slate - 灰蓝 huī lán  బూడిద నీలం būḍida nīlaṁ               

sky blue - 天蓝 tiānlán ఆకాశం ākāśaṁ

Prussian blue - 普蓝 pǔ lán ప్రష్యన్ బ్లూ praṣyan blū       

steel blue - 钢蓝 gāng lán  ఉక్కు నీలం ukku nīlaṁ

 

Task 06.2 Resonance with Aboriginal Fibre Art in Blue

These colourful woven baskets are made by Martumili artists in Western Australia. Wound tightly together using desert grasses and colourful yarns, the irregularly-shaped baskets are embellished with beads and incorporate the occasional metal tin can. They’re a product of an enduring and evolving craft: while the the techniques, materials and form may be considered innovative, they recall the traditional practice of carrying wooden vessels to transport food and water:

“We design baskets to remind us of the piti [wooden dishes] we used to carry on our heads. We gather the minari [grass] from our own Country and we like lovely coloured wool.”

(Nola Taylor in National Museum Australia, nd.)

I find these objects aesthetically beautiful and distinct, and they resonate with my cultural value of the importance of family and friendship. The baskets are imbued with cultural history, and so is the practice of creating them. The women makers teach the craft to family and in doing so pass on dreams, stories and aspects of their identity to future generations.

National Museum Australia. (nd.). Creating culture. Retrieved from http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yiwarra_kuju/artworks/creating_culture

Task 05.2 Resonance with Aboriginal Fiber Art in Blue

Questions for Guest Lecturer Karen Hughes: 

1. Did Aboriginal fibre art co-evolve with biting bags? Or did one come before the other (i.e., did ‘art’, as purely aesthetic, pave the way for future technologies like bags?)
2. Is Aboriginal art inherently functional? If not, what is non-functional art for Indigenous peoples?
3. How has the museum changed Aboriginal art and culture?
4. Was there some special importance for why the women only made biting bags?
5. How does the incorporation of coloured wool into biting bags represent the current state of Australian Indigenous peoples?

 

Most important cultural value: critical self-reflection. 

 

Why do I resonate with the above image?

I resonate with the above Aboriginal fibre art piece because of its liberating quality. The tendrils on the outer part of the circle symbolise freedom or a breaking free of something confining. In my case, it is a breaking free from one’s unconscious mind. The inner part, then, with its many coloured circles, can be seen as a cross section of a multilayered unconscious mind. The middle circle represents the oldest or most rigid unconscious mechanisms, and as we make our way to the edge of the very last circle, we encounter the least resistant mechanisms. Having overcome one’s unconscious mind, the tendrils represent all the various possibilities of freedom of thought and action. The woven fibre of the circle is somewhat rigid in its pattern, which contrasts well with the free-flowing tendrils. Overall, this artwork is an image of an opening, like a sunflower revealing itself to the sun, or a revolutionary moment of transcendence.   

 

Dyeing and Pandanas Weaving

This is a video of Australian Aboriginal women from Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia and their basketing weaving and dyeing of pandanas leaves.