Jackson (Haram) Park

I believe that within a single color are accumulated the stories of the people who created it and the passage of time that shaped it. Through researching safflower red and indigo, and learning the dyeing processes myself, I came to understand that color is hints through which we can look into the culture and lives of a particular time.
In particular, by observing artisans at work up close, I began to understand the meaning of “waiting” in a new way. I learned that waiting is noticing small changes, repeating the same process, and gradually building trust in one’s experience over time.
From then on, instead of searching for answers only in books and written sources, I began trying to learn with my own hands. Seeking out artisans, learning their methods directly, and repeating the same processes until they became familiar through practice revealed things that research materials alone could never fully show me.
I have tried to record these processes and stories so that more people can encounter them, while also connecting different people and institutions so that new interests, conversations, and relationships can begin. Starting from what I have learned and come to understand, I have also explored these ideas again through my own art, using color, fabric, hands, and traces of time as ways of seeing and expressing them.
I am still a student, and I am still learning. But I believe the role I can play is clear: to record what may disappear before it does and to reconsider its meaning through the perspective of the present, and to connect it to the next person.
Through Dyeing the Dying History, I hope to continue using color and material as ways of understanding the past more deeply, and to keep searching for ways in which the stories of the people preserved within them can meet the present again and be carried forward to the next generation.