P A T C H - W O R K • I N D I G O
CERES Community Garden
Wurundjeri Land, Brunswick East
Summer, 2023.
Patch-Work is a collaborative project with Merri Cheyne that engages with the community garden as a place for collective practice.
In this event, Indigo Persicaria tinctoria leaves were gathered from Merri’s garden and used to dye repurposed textiles with CERES Community Gardening Group and friends.
Indigo is a group of culturally significant plants with varieties across the world. Through our practice, we pay respect to lineages of knowledge in dye craft. We acknowledge the violent histories of Indigo as a colonial plantation crop and enslavement of peoples in Western plantations; extraction and exploitation of Indigo dye practices that span Africa, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Japan, Asia, and South America diasporas.
Through Patch-Work, our intention is to try work counter to extractive frameworks, to respectfully come to know labour and knowledge through growing our own materials, centring skill-sharing and peer support in our processes.
Images:
1. Merri gathering Indigo leaves in her plot at CERES Community Garden
2. Indigo salt rub dye method using fresh leaves
3. Dyer’s hands
4. Silk with Indigo
5. Iris hanging textiles
6. CERES Community Gardening Group and friends: Jo, Sian, Susan, Emily, Lester, Merri, Rebecca, Dee, Pia, Shiho, Anthony, Tarone, Iris, Trevor.
Photography by Trevor Prasad.
CERES Community Garden
Wurundjeri Land, Brunswick East
Summer, 2023.
Patch-Work is a collaborative project with Merri Cheyne that engages with the community garden as a place for collective practice.
In this event, Indigo Persicaria tinctoria leaves were gathered from Merri’s garden and used to dye repurposed textiles with CERES Community Gardening Group and friends.
Indigo is a group of culturally significant plants with varieties across the world. Through our practice, we pay respect to lineages of knowledge in dye craft. We acknowledge the violent histories of Indigo as a colonial plantation crop and enslavement of peoples in Western plantations; extraction and exploitation of Indigo dye practices that span Africa, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Japan, Asia, and South America diasporas.
Through Patch-Work, our intention is to try work counter to extractive frameworks, to respectfully come to know labour and knowledge through growing our own materials, centring skill-sharing and peer support in our processes.
Images:
1. Merri gathering Indigo leaves in her plot at CERES Community Garden
2. Indigo salt rub dye method using fresh leaves
3. Dyer’s hands
4. Silk with Indigo
5. Iris hanging textiles
6. CERES Community Gardening Group and friends: Jo, Sian, Susan, Emily, Lester, Merri, Rebecca, Dee, Pia, Shiho, Anthony, Tarone, Iris, Trevor.
Photography by Trevor Prasad.