Dye Trying: Field Notes From a Textile Residency in the Philippines
Dye Trying: Field Notes From a Textile Residency in the Philippines
A project by The Office of Culture and Design (the OCD), produced during a residency under the Maharam - STEAM Fellowship in Applied Art and Design. This book contains fieldnotes, observations and readings gathered by two RISD students, Lyza Baum and Emilie Cheng, whom the OCD invited to attend an 8-week textile design residency, focused on natural dyes and four-harness loom-weaving, hosted in collaboration with the Tubigon Loomweavers Multi-Purpose Cooperative (TLMPC) in Tubigon, Bohol Island, Philippines. The projects seeks to explore indigenous dye plants in Bohol and Manila and collaborate with local weavers and develop avenues for naturally dyed fabrics within the coop’s woven fabrics. Founded in 2010 by Kristian Henson and Clara Balaguer, The OCD has functioned as a platform for artists, writers, designers, and social practice projects that want to use culture as a way to address developing world issues. Since 2013, they work through the imprint, Hardworking Goodlooking, a guerrilla publishing house and studio-less design studio founded in the Philippines and working out of Laguna, Rotterdam, Portland, and Brooklyn, dedicated to exploring, documenting, and facilitating published works on (vernacular material) culture in the Philippines and its diaspora.