As with other innovations, the dye garden has fostered a sense of shared community and purpose
while being the medium through which those working in it have made linkages to do with history,
continuity and identity.
Numerous dye workshops have been held as student and staff development sessions, as part of
an outreach campaign to disadvantaged school pupils in the Hackney area, in museum
collaborations and the garden will feature in the Gardeners World summer show in Birmingham. In
these workshops participants visit the garden and then roll up their sleeves, pin up their fabric
samples to form the pattern base and then plunge the material into vats of dyes made from onions,
tulips, black carrots, elderflowers, and logwood among others, before drying them al fresco.
Fabric dyed by Susie Wareham
Among the surprises of these workshops have been the delicacies of the shades and colours
produced from unlikely sources, the sheer enjoyment and sense of fulfilment experienced and the
shifts in thinking that stretch beyond the dyeing activity. Going back to our six triggers, participants
in workshops have remarked on how their knowledge of chemical dyeing has grown (1, 2, 6, 10)
and how their own behaviours have shifted as a result of learning about alternatives (2, 5, 6, 10):
students have said they want to do it again, but also that they need to think about how, where and
why they shop…with one even commenting that “I haven’t bought anything since the workshop as
I don’t know what I want to buy any more” (5,10, 11). Student societies such as the Sustainability
Society and the UAL Tea Society want to use the garden for additional purposes: the latter are now
growing their own teas, in among the dye plants (11).
In terms of recording and reflecting on their experiences, the memorable and transformational
aspects of engagement in these events were through the age-old ‘learning by doing’ and the
dreaded conference evaluation form, but also, as we advocate in Engaging Imagination, by
THE CENTRE FOR RECORDING ACHIEVEMENT 104 -108 WALLGATE, WIGAN, WN3 4AB |
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