Color is Alive - Avocado ink

Limited edition print with a pattern designed for the project Color is Alive, where the artist researched how to adapt natural ink-making for screen printing. Screen printed with handmade plant-based ink on the organic cotton fabric of 3 x 2m. The natural ink and its hue were created from kitchen waste Avocado stones (Persea Americana). Hand-printed and hand-sewed into a limited edition series of cushion covers.

In 2021 with the project Color is Alive - in collaboration with Grafische Werkplaats Den Haag and Gemeente Den Haag - Greta D. Facchinato researched how to make sustainable and organic ink for screen printing. Nowadays, the printing industry focuses on synthetic ink as an eternally living compound, meant to provide a variety of colors all year round and last unchanged for as long as possible. On the contrary, bio-based ink is an organic living matter, composed of biological ingredients and influenced by nature’s cycles and habitats. Depending on the characteristics of the plants and organisms involved in pigments, binders, and preservatives, each ink will carry a different life which eventually determines its color-fast properties.

Ingredients: Avocado stones (Persea Americana), Agar agar (Eucheuma), Guar gum (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba), Arabic gum (Acacia senegal), Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking soda).

Research made possible by Gemeente Den Haag and in collaboration with Grafische Werkplaats Den Haag.

This material is included in the Future Materials Bank's archive and in the Materials Design Map