In the context of Marianna Maruyama’s exhibition “Six Blue Things” at Page Not Found, the artist invites Greta Desirèe Facchinato to introduce her colorful practice of natural ink-making.

What is ink? One of the potential answers is: the advancement of visual communication. The history of writing mediums is considered, in some ways, the history of civilization itself. From ancient times, the ancestral civilizations used ink to decorate their bodies, ornaments, and walls. It wasn’t until around 2500 BCE that ink began to be used for writing in Egypt and China, coinciding with the development of the first paper, papyrus. The inks were often made using a mixture of blood, ocher, plant material, gums, resins, oils, waxes and vinegars.

During this workshop Greta Desirèe Facchinato will guide you how to extract color from plants, kitchen waste and urban relics, in order to make ink suitable for drawing, printing, and painting.

Her intention is to guide each participant in shifting awareness to recognize which ingredients we can forage in our landscape, create a connection with the surrounding and re-learn our relationship with colors. Together we will forage the ingredients needed in the surroundings of Page Not Found.

Greta Desirèe Facchinato is an Italian/Luxembourgish artist and designer based in Den Haag. The point of departure in her work is always the body, specifically its constant relationship between interiority and exteriority, as an appendix for the physical senses. The scope of her work is to invite the other into a self-reflective condition.
With a background in dance and sculpture, she graduated with her MA in Artistic Research in 2018. In recent years she is been interested in shifting towards a more holistic and sustainable practice, by paying attention to the choice of materials/production methods and looking at inanimate substances such as ink as living matter. The world of natural color is endless and attached to antique traditions and knowledge which have been substituted by the advance of synthetic colors. Her approach aims to invite us to look into colors as a series of living bodies, not meant to be here forever.

The workshop has space for a limited number of participants. Please send an e-mail to register@page-not-found.nl with subject ‘Ink-making’ and your name to RSVP. UPDATE: Workshop is now full!

No experience is necessary to participate. Materials are provided but it is recommended to bring your favorite sketchbook or notebook. Participants may bring an apron to keep their clothes clean, or wear clothing that can get dirty.

The workshop starts at 15:00 and runs till 18:00, with a break in between.