Colour of the Year was a durational installation in the outdoor central pool of the Aga Khan Museum during Nuit Blanche Toronto 2022. The installation directed our attention to the chemical dye industry and environmental impacts.
Title
Colour of the Year
Created
2022
Medium
Outdoor durational installation, central pool of the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto
Dimensions
n/a
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Colour of The Year took place on October 1, 2022 at The Aga Khan Museum, Toronto.
Perceive it’s wavelengths as it glistens across continents, rivers, oceans, and seas. It mingles with old growth forests and morning’s fresh dew.
Find it in autumn leaves, the glint of copper, iridescent fins, and in water that is aqua blue or emerald green or else in white sand that sparkles, and in black charcoal sheen.
Catch it in migrating bird wings and darting lizard eyes, in young sumac red and late summer marigold. Bend down and find it in rich earth. Look up and see it dancing in the night sky.
Discover it in the clear, oxygen-rich water as it flows from mountains to valleys. Fill your hands and observe it spill down creating a path of reflection everywhere it goes.
See it pooling in lakes and ponds, glass-like or wavy and then watch it evaporate only to fall back down as rain and rainbow, the colours of life, our eyes like droplets.
So what when it becomes murky and sludgy? When it mimics it’s origins in leaf, vegetable, or insect only to be distilled and synthesized, made permanent, uniform and unchanging? What of the afterlife of colour then?
A water crisis. An environmental toxin, a poisoned lake, a darkened river. Chemical green, acid blue washing onto the shore, sinking deep into our ecosystems. This year’s vibrant turquoise becomes next year’s sombre grey.