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SUMMARY:The 'dye herbarium': capturing colour in botanical collections - A
 nna Svensson (KTH Royal Institute of Technology\, Stockholm)
DTSTART:20190304T130000Z
DTEND:20190304T140000Z
UID:TALK117730@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Laura Brassington
DESCRIPTION:There is an anomaly among the old herbaria in Uppsala. Tucked 
 away on a lower shelf\, a smaller collection yields unexpected contents: p
 age after page present colourful skeins of silk and wool samples dyed from
  lichens. They are the colour samples of the Johannes P. Westring's printe
 d dyer's manual\, _Svenska Lafvarnas Färghistoria\, eller Sättet att anv
 ända dem till färgning och annan hushållsnytta_ (Stockholm\, 1805). Wha
 t is this textile collection doing in the herbarium?\n\nPondering the rele
 vance of dye-related collections and specimens to the history of botany br
 ings the role of colour to the fore: colour\, that fleeting quality of the
  plant that is soon lost from the preserved specimen. The question of how 
 to capture colour is an old problem\, reflected in early modern experiment
 s with different ways of preserving and representing them\, including pain
 ting specimens and making nature prints. The juxtaposition involved in wha
 t we might call the 'dye herbarium' is an opportunity for comparison that 
 highlights shared challenges of working with plants as distinctly local an
 d temporal organisms. Both are concerned with preserving particular elemen
 ts of plants\, which given their transience requires accurate labels and s
 ystematic procedures.\n\nThese observations are a venture into unfamiliar 
 ground for me as a historian\, as they have been informed by my own forays
  into natural dyeing. Methodologically\, this has made me more aware of te
 nsions within hierarchies of knowledge shaping my own interpretive framewo
 rks\, broadly informed by the material turn in the history of science.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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