The artistic research project with Woad and Indigo started in 2007 and has been an ongoing of experimentations. From growing Woad and Japanese Indigo and some other Indigo plants and through the fermentation processes, to create different colours.
As an active fermenter, I am fascinated by the relationships that arise between the microorganism and myself. These processes of fermentation are also about researching my psyche, and the emotional and existential relationship that I have to the earth, and the wildness of my heart, the plants and the universe. The anabolic process of fermentation voices a symphony of beautiful and engaging melodies of blue colours. The colouring processes of indigo plants, from green to blue that connects the earth to the sea with the sky, are nature and ecology. Blue is not just a shade. It is a web of light, energy, photosynthesis, sensuality, sound and moving bodies. These fermentation processes are sacred, and they sing for the soil, just as they sing for the people, through by which the colours interconnect with the force of light. They live and create, by and through more tunes in the inter-playing orchestra of photosynthesis in the ecosphere.
The meeting with powerful plants like indigo and woad is for me an interweaving of cultural history, from a long time before, and forces beyond our personal and physical reality. It is a sensually entangled state that provides us with magic, and science proves that this magic is a colony of microscopic microorganisms, bacteria that start anaerobic processes, processes that are emotions and bodily involvement.
The process of work always starts with the seeds and the soil. I have researched many different soils where the plants have been growing and the results are different. Each of the plants contains several hundred to thousands of different unique chemicals.