This week’s FEEDBACK FRIDAY was with Deepa Preeti Natarajan who guided us with ethnobotany to how we can be better plant stewards and natural dyers.
Watch the video recording here:
Deepa has been the Program Coordinator for the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley for the past 15 years having the unique opportunity to transform her love of plants into a year-round series of classes, workshops, exhibits, tours, and events. Along this journey she developed a passion for natural dyes and sustainable fashion and was introduced to the field of ethnobotany. In 2018 she traveled to England to pursue a master’s degree in ethnobotany from the University of Kent in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Her interdisciplinary interests span a variety of ethnobotanical topics from medicinal, dye, ritual, and food plants, to knowledge systems, phytochemistry, and transnationality.
Find her work at Plantspeople and on the Botanical Garden at Berkeley.
NEXT WEEK we’ll be talking with Sarah Pottle and Jess Boeke, twin sisters from Cleveland, OHIO, who are natural dyers, educators, activists, and are the co-founders of the Rust Belt Fibershed as well as Drift Lab Textile Co. Sarah and Jess will share how natural dyes, textiles, and community projects can be one effective entry point to systemic change and discuss how stewardship is the anchor of their projects.
RSVP here.
FEEDBACK FRIDAY
If you are not familiar with FEEDBACK FRIDAY, every week, we speak with dyers, artists, scientists and scholars about our favorite topic, natural dyeing and color. Curated by Amy DuFault, Botanical Colors’ Sustainability and Social Media Director and presented by Botanical Colors’ Founder Kathy Hattori.