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1 Test samples grouping several black dyeing recipes using locally sourced materials (onion peels, coffee grounds, metal leftovers, river mud, oak bark, oak gall) for Sitterwerk
2 Working with Wayne Switzer at the Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen
3 Big scale test
4 Final textiles for the SCHWARZ ≠ SCHWARZ. Schwarzfärben im Wandel exhibition
5 Immerging a sample in iron water / various sorts of iron waters made with metal leftovers from the Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen
6 Colourful blacks
1 Test samples grouping several black dyeing recipes using locally sourced materials (onion peels, coffee grounds, metal leftovers, river mud, oak bark, oak gall) for Sitterwerk
2 Working with Wayne Switzer at the Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen
3 Big scale test
4 Final textiles for the SCHWARZ ≠ SCHWARZ. Schwarzfärben im Wandel exhibition
5 Immerging a sample in iron water / various sorts of iron waters made with metal leftovers from the Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen
6 Colourful blacks
02. Situated Dyeing / Schwarzfärben at Sitterwerk
In 2026, I was mandated by the art library and material archive Sitterwerk in St. Gallen, Switzerland, to collaborate on a textile dyeing research around black dyeing. Recontextualizing the library’s historical location as an industrial black dyeing facility in the 1980s, the project was to collaborate on an experimental dyeing research making use of locally sourced materials. Together, we developed a dyeing research using materials from the Sitterwerk cosmos in the Sittertal area of St. Gallen. Making use of various key locations such as the kitchen, the neighbouring Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen, the river and its banks, and local forests, we gathered various tree barks, food rests, metal leftovers and river mud and experimented with those materials to develop a site-specific textile installation exploring the colours and processes behind natural black dyeing.
The final textile exhibition, made of seven big pieces of textiles, will be exhibited in the Sitterwerk art library, the former black dyeing room, opening on 4th June 2026.
Situated Dyeing is a design method term we coined during our textile dyeing research at Sitterwerk, directly drawing from Donna J. Haraway’s essay Situated Knowledges (Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (pp. 183-201), Free Association Books, 1991), in which she advocates for “situated” knowledge in science, knowledge that acknowledges the specific situation of a scientific research, as opposed to the common idea that science is objective.
Similarly, we are wondering how the specific situation and history of the Sitterwerk cosmos is reflected in what materials are available to us to create black dyes. The questions we ask with the project are: What makes a contextual dyeing practice? What does natural or local dyeing mean in a complex world shaped by centuries of trade, exchange and hybridisation? How does the extraction of colour mirror the essence of a place?
2026 (on-going)
In collaboraton with Sitterwerk Foundation
Curated by Wayne Switzer and Claudine Brignot
Exhibitions
2026 (upcoming) SCHWARZ ≠ SCHWARZ. Schwarzfärben im Wandel, Sitterwerk, CH