Soil As Community's Colour.

The Atlas of Canada's Local Colours is an ongoing project that seeks to explore the range of locally available pigments at numerous sites across Canada. Regional samples of soil, rock, bone, and plant have been collected and subject to a range of treatments including: crushing, grinding, levitating and firing. These treatments produced varying results, from subtle shifts of hue to veritable rainbows of color. A map of each locality is then created, combining both color and place to carefully document the impact of process on the pigment's final qualities, and the location from which it was drawn. The Atlas has lead to multidisciplinary and wide-ranging collaborations, resulting in making crayons with the children of Kamloops, painting ancestral rocks with the hands of the Luiseño people from San Diego, and reinterpreting a derelict, clay-brick building into color with artists in Berlin. This presentation will provide a further introduction to the Atlas as well as the visual methodology behind Christopher’s artwork and introduce engaging and interdisciplinary ideas to interact with students around soil science.