This week’s FEEDBACK FRIDAY was with indigo master dyer and multidisciplinary artist Aboubakar Fofana.
Aboubakar is based in Mali and France and updated us on his latest projects including cotton cultivation in Mali. He also talked about his indigo farm, exhibits and the workshops he is teaching with Botanical Colors this spring and summer.
Watch the video recording here:
Shop the Finimugu (Malian Strip Cloth) Aboubakar talked about and showed us beautiful images of here.
If you don’t know indigo master dyer Aboubakar Fofana, he is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose working mediums include calligraphy, textiles and natural dyes. He is known for his work in reinvigorating and redefining West African indigo dyeing techniques, and much of his focus is devoted to the preservation and reinterpretation of traditional West African textile and natural dyeing techniques and materials.
He is currently deeply involved in creating a farm in conjunction with the local community in the district of Siby, Mali, in which the two types of indigenous West African indigo (Indigofera Arrecta and Philenoptera Cyanescens) will be the centerpiece for a permaculture model based around local food, medicine and dye plants. This project hopes to contribute to the rebirth of fermented indigo dyeing in Mali and beyond, and represents his life’s greatest project to date.
Join us next week, April 9th, 9am Pacific, 12pm Eastern for a live Zoom FEEDBACK FRIDAY with Brooklyn-based natural dyer and artisan Cara Marie Piazza to talk all things ice dyeing!
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 + Communications Director and presented by Botanical Colors’ Founder Kathy Hattori.
We even have our own theme song thanks to musician Jimmie Snider!