calcareous memories
2025, 3 cotton fabrics, hand-dyed with woad from Central Anatolia,
resist-dyed with limestone from Untersberg, 68 x 300 cm each.
Collaboration with OU Jiun-You (歐軍佑).
In this collaboration, İklim Doğan and OU Jiun-You work with the traces that materials create through their journey, which they define as the materials’ memory. They brought together woad (Isatis tinctoria, an endemic plant growing in Central Anatolia, with leaves that produce a type of indigo blue dye) and broken Untersberg limestone – materials each artist has explored in their individual practice.
During the initial experiments, they discovered that calcium hydroxide derived from limestone provides the alkaline environment required for the chemical reduction of indigo, enabling the pigment to become an active imprinting agent.
To trace the imagery of broken limestone, they employed three different methods: semi-automatic formation, the traditional Japanese indigo-dyeing technique katazome, and stencil-based application. Through the process of transferring indigo between limestone and fabric, the experiment itself becomes the outcome. The materials record their interaction both physically and through their inherent chemical and natural properties.