The revitalization of indigo dyeing, especially the production process of/with natural dye, is seen globally. As the most available colour plant in many places of the world, indigo reflects common vernacularity yet also varieties from soil and climate of each locale. Indigo hence often reflects the humble memory of living of people and the revitalization process forms the site of memory under the present demand whether for community mobilization, niche market or post-disaster resilience. This project aims to examine multiple cases of revitalization of Indigo dying, to explore the drive behind revitalization, the process of making indigo as the site of memory of group of people and how indigo can be a socially engaged colour for mobilizing actions. The cases of Taiwan, Yogjakarta, Chiang Mai, Borneo, India and West Africa are concerned.

This project threads multiple areas/partners through co-producing online courses and conducting in-situ mutual-learning events. It aims to involve multiple actors including craftspeople, universities, art students, local communities and cultural institutions from different areas through co-making the films of courses. Furthermore, the filmed materials can be used by partners of different areas for build mutual understanding and to generate further cooperation on in-situ events such as workshops and summer school.

The Pedagogies through Indigo

The new course ‘Indigo Across Borders’ is going to be implemented in the later year of 2017 in the TNUA and followed by further series courses. The course adopts two seem-to-be conflicting approaches: online Mooc learning and on-site field participation. Through juxtaposing the distanced leaning and in-situ learning, the course aims to show that, ‘process’ is core to the understanding of craft, and can never be fast-forwarded and be avoided through changing channels. This course is opened to multiple disciplinary art students as a course of General Education. New courses and projects are also developing in the School of Culture Resources TNUA for Master and PhD programmes.