Artist Demonstration: Natural Pigment Dyes Making

On the occasion of Candice Lin’s Pigs and Poison exhibition, join Pōneke-based artist Angela Kilford (Te Whanau A Kai, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu) as she demonstrates the processes of natural pigment dyes-making.

Materials used in her demonstration will include indigo, colonising plants like gorse, and native plants such as harakeke. Like Lin, Kilford works in textiles and explores the whakapapa of local ecology and the lesser-known connections between living and non-living entities. Demonstration attendees will have the opportunity to engage with the dye process through making a small sample, applying methods of shibori such as mokume (stitch resist) or itajime (fold resist).

Assisting Kilford is Julia Hope, a textile designer and researcher whose practice includes exploration into how micro-algae pigments can be used for textile colouration.