Making colour a relational practice: correspondence between materials and local environments in natural textile dyeing processes

In contrast to biocolourants, the standards of colour production and manufacturing with synthetic dyes ensure that the desired colours meet the expectations of both the designers and the market. However, these models reduce colourants to static, stable categories, detaching the dyeing materials from the complex relations between the practitioners and the environment that arise during dyeing. Using Ingold’s processual perspective on materials and making, Berleants’ concept of aesthetic engagement and Saito’s aesthetics of imperfection, this article proposes a way of understanding the dyeing practice in which colour emerges from the correspondences between the dyers and the environment, by involving the practitioner’s openness and capacity to follow the flow of materials in the process of making colour. It aims to open up a discussion on the current colour practices in the field of crafts and design and offers a theoretical perspective on dyeing that involves the influence of organisms and environments on colour.