Date: Sunday, 06 April 2025
Artist Talk & Screening: 13:00-14:30h CET
Workshop: 15:00-18:00h CET
Participation: Free (please register via: info@varia.zone)
Location: Varia (Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam)
Boricua artist Karla Claudio collaborates with Varia to host a short presentation about Caribbean dye plants and their colonial histories. The artist will share documentation of their creative practice and those of other Caribbean artists conducting material and historical research on Caribbean dye and pigment plants. Afterwards, we will screen three short films about Caribbean dye plants: ‘Who Is Logwood?’ (2024), ‘The New Indigo Wave’ (2025), and ‘Jiquilite’ (2022). This talk is part of the public programming under La Recolecta, an arts and ecology lab led by artists that study collaborations with wild plants to support food and material sovereignty.
The artist talk & screening will be followed by a lake pigment making workshop. We will develop botanical pigments with plants available in nearby community gardens. We will also share light meals prepared with the same plants to understand the multiple functions of those phytochemicals responsible for the color, taste, smell and nutritional properties of a given plant. Everyone who is curious about the colonial history of Caribbean dyes and pigments is welcome to participate. Limited capacity available - to reserve your spot please send an email by 4 April to info@varia.zone.
About Karla Claudio:
Karla Claudio (1987) (she/they) is an independent researcher, documentary filmmaker, visual artist and educator born and based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They produce and direct experimental documentaries on Caribbean ethnobotany, craft, mythology and land based practices in support of material and food sovereignty. Their films, dye and pigment experiments, and risograph publications have been featured in galleries and museums such as the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Miramar Design Museum, Kadist Gallery, Contemporary Art Museum of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico National Archive, Whitney Museum of American Art, and more. They are currently working as a creative and local producer for ‘Matininó’, a feature length hybrid documentary directed by Gabriela Arp and supported by Topic, Sundance Film Institute, Bay Area Video Coalition, Studio IX, Doc Society and the General Film Office of the Dominican Republic. They are currently a Sundance 2024 Latine Artist Accelerator Fellow and a 2025 Artist Resident at the Vila Sul Goethe-Institut later this year at Salvador, Brazil.
The artist talk and workshop ’A Color With A Body And A Place’ are part of the public programming by La Recolecta, an ongoing art and ecology research based in Puerto Rico and led by the artist that studies collaborations with wild plants to support food and material sovereignty. Knowledge is gleaned and shared through zines, community workshops and short documentaries. La Recolecta collaborates with wild plants from a place of creative curiosity and empirical knowledge. Their workshops and skill-sharing meetings in Puerto Rico value both scientific and folk botanical knowledge as a means to challenge hegemonic structures that monopolize and “legitimize” the creation of knowledge.
Links:
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user4591024
IG: www.instagram.com/el_matojal | www.instagram.com/la.recolecta
Karla Claudio’s visit to The Netherlands and presentation is made possible by the International Visitors Program – Nieuwe Instituut, hosting organisation Varia, and thanks to the support from Niek Hilkmann and Janneke van der Putten. Rotterdam, 2025.