3 - Indigo: The Layered Materiality of a Seductive Material

Presentation Abstract
This paper presents a long-term research project and series that I’ve worked on, which is grounded in the layered materiality of the seductive material known as indigo. As an artist I’m interested in retrieving the different affective stains left by this precious blue dye in various geographical locations, across Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and how the transnational exchanges for it have bled into histories of laboring bodies, art historical tradition of visualizing the divine, and finally even into forms of musical expression. In addition to sharing artworks, I will also highlight some of the processes that I’m undertaking in the studio as part of an argument for art practice as a form of research, inviting dialogue and points of connections with other participants and artists working between Africa and Asia.  By touching, smelling, and molding material in various ways, my work imagines crisscrossing feedback loops where “blue” or “indigo” can gesture towards a solidarity across varied contemporary oppressions.