Following a Blue Thread
Sonja Dahl
1 week course || FIBER 618 001 || 1 credit hour || Lab Fee: $50

To love indigo is no innocent thing. This course, while focused on technical aspects of working with indigo dye, also takes into account the complexities inherent to historical and contemporary infatuation with the dye, specifically within its American trajectory from colonial plantation crop to current fetishization in popular culture. The students will be asked to approach their work with the dye from a critical standpoint, thinking not only about its alchemical and transformative mysteries, but also as a social-political substance, rich in semiotic potential. This class will depart from culturally specific approaches to surface design with indigo like batik and shibori, and instead utilize indigo through experimental, performative, and conceptually-driven means and materials.

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FACULTY

Sonja Dahl
Colonial Glory
|synthetic indigo dye, rice
96” x 96” x .25
2016

Sonja Dahl is an artist, writer, and Research Associate in the Department of Art at the University of Oregon, Eugene. She received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2012 and subsequently spent several years making research and collaborative projects in Indonesia with support from the Fulbright Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council. Her artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles; Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland; Darwin Visual Arts Association, Australia; and Bezirksmuseum Neubau, Vienna. Her writing is published in both peer-reviewed journals and print-based and online arts publications, including PARSE Journal, Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture, and Surface Design Journal. Dahl lectures widely and has attended residencies at Ox-Bow, Caldera, Summer Forum, and ACRE, among others. www.sonjakdahl.com