~SENSING EARTH COLOUR~ is a practice-based and collaborative research and teaching project with a special focus on developing critical colour practices which include the question of ecologies of colour and the kaleidoscopic transformations caused by the current and future chemical make-ups of our environments.

~SENSING EARTH COLOUR~ works and thinks with colour-bearing organisms such as the plants Rubia Tinctorum (Madder) and Isatis Tinctoria (European Indigo) or the microalgae Haematococcus pluvalis and the cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis, among many others. The research and teaching project takes place at the Department for Visual Arts in the Faculty of Architecture at RWTH Aachen University in Germany.

We propose a posthuman understanding of colouring agents whereas colour refuses to be perceived as a mere decorative feature: instead, as an embodied experience and agentic force, colour moves, scars, imprints. We look to strategies and ways that other entities use to produce pigment, and how these colours are shifting in the era of the Anthropocene. If it be the pigment or dye deriving from a plant, microalgae or cyanobacteria, in its many tints and manifestations it shapes its surrounding and our perception of it reflexively. To attune to these tints, despite the artificial backdrop of synthetic colour, is to engage with all five senses simultaneously. ~SENSING EARTH COLOUR~ is an attempt to (re-)activate those sensitivities in order to equip us with a capacity to perceive and reflect colour shifts especially caused by the Anthropocene, and ultimately to be able to generate meaning of them.

Practicing and interacting with these colouring agents asks us to reflect on ecological, social and economic dimensions of material culture, supported by positions in contemporary theory. Various 'Handlungsvorschläge' (invitations/provocations for doing) are developed which require and contextualise an embodied knowledge and wish to shape a reciprocal and affective gaze towards the non-human. If personal, ecological or planetary, life in precarity asks us not only to rethink, but also to undo and redo, to unlearn and relearn.

Therefore, growing, flowing, fading, sensing and tracing describe and summarise our (un)doings towards the notion of colour, yet from different entry points.

This project is initiated by Sina Hensel and Anja Neuefeind. It was funded from 2020-2023 by Curriculum 4.0, Stifterverband NRW as part of HYDE (Hybride Denkwerkzeuge- Hybrid Tools for Thought) and has won the Teaching Prize of the Faculty of Architecture in 2021. It took and still continues to take place as a teaching and research project at the Department of Visual Arts, Architecture Department, RWTH Aachen University in Germany.

Sina Hensel lives and works as a visual artist in Brussels and is currently a researcher at the Chair of Visual Arts RWTH Aachen University/GER, the Art and Design Academy FHNW Basel/CH, the University of Arts Linz/AUS, the Chair of Cultural Sciences at the Humboldt University Berlin/GER (under Prof. Claudia Mareis), at the KASK School of Arts Ghent/BE and the Royal Academy of Antwerp/BE in the Art & Ecology Research Group. For more information please visit: www.sinahensel.de

Anja Neuefeind lives and works in Aachen since 2008. She is the head of the Studio for Colour and Space at the Chair of Visual Arts, RWTH Aachen University/GER. Until 2020 her position was a research assistance at the Chair of Visual Arts, RWTH Aachen University/GER. In her research and teaching, aesthetical and spatial effects of colour as well as material, cultural and technical aspects are part of her interests in the matter of colour.

Our student collaborators over the past years were:

Aliskan, Sezen; Bahcivan, Kübra; Dierkes, Charleen; Hadasch, Lena; Halsdorf, Brad; Honrath, Lena; Isikli, Tansel; Joergens, Mara; König, Laura; Kütten, Daniel; Schwab, Lea; Al Hinai, Abeer; Dewey, Marie; Engelke, Sally; Lueke, Charles; Özbey, Ayça; Paloiu, Theodora; Tacke, Marco; Tanpolat, Mehmet; Titze, Ruben; Weinberg, Marietheres; Wilk, Franziska; You, Siwei; Alp, Elias; Bastert, Lotte; Bogdanova, Nezabravka; ElKabbany, Hana; Guntermann, Fabian; Klein, Noémie; Papalouca, Eleni; Rastoder, Sabina; Schierloh, Freia; Schreer, Teresa; Skawski, Jessica; Stempel, Célina; Guo, Yaxiong; Stojanovic, Ivana; Buchholz, Johanne; Carl, Nicolai; Hassenrik, Nicole; Ibrahim, Shara; Konon, Ekaterina; Pitt, Julia; Reinbold, Lucas; Rüter, Vanessa; Tauber, Tim; Bostan, Selina; D'Oria, Nicolas; Guo, Ziqing; Jäger, Mathea; Melendez Miranda, Eduardo; Multhaup, Sophia; Nagy, Regina; Rajalingam, Sinthusha; Schade, Ella; Alieva, Melisa; Hlal, Maram; Hofbauer, Theresa; Mornealo, Dana.

Bibliography

DeSilvey, Caitlin (2017): Curated Decay: Heritage beyond Saving, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Gould, Kevin S. (2004): Nature’s Swiss Army Knife: The Diverse Protective Roles of Anthocyanins in Leaves. In: Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology, 5, pp. 314-320.

Noyes Vanderpoel, Emily (1903): Color Problems. A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color. New York/London: Longmans, Green, and Co.

Taussig, Michael (2005): Redeeming Indigo. In: Theory, Culture & Society, 25(3), pp. 1–15.

Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt (2015): The Mushroom at the End of the World, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Turturicā, M. / Oancea, A. M / Râpeanu, G. / Bahrim, G. (2015): Anthocyanins: Naturally Occurring Fruit Pigments with Functional Properties. In: Food Technology, 39(1), pp. 9-24.

Disclaimer

Liability for Content
This site contains links to third-party Websites. The content of such third-party sites is the responsibility of the respective owners/providers.

Copyrights 
The content and works provided on these Webpages are governed by the copyright laws of Germany. Duplication, processing, distribution, or any form of commercialization of such material beyond the scope of copyright law shall require the prior written consent of its respective author or creator.