2026, Frances vH. Mohair, South Africa
The ocean never left
A rock is a fragment of earth: a convergence of layered time, pressed into a single moment. A rock that creaks, collapses, crumbles, and disappears is also pigment: rich and ancestral. What follows traces an encounter between stone and fiber, where pigments from the Swartberg Pass leave their mark on South African mohair.
Material research on natural dyeing with rock-derived pigments from the Swartberg Pass, examining the transfer of mineral color onto mohair as a process shaped by geological composition, material interaction, and time.
Long before modern industry, mineral pigments shaped daily life, ritual, and expression. Across ancient communities, ochres and earth colors were used in cave paintings, body adornment, tool marking, and symbolic practices. These pigments connected humans to the land through direct contact. Color was gathered, ground, mixed, and applied by hand, a process that required patience and care.
The pigments used in this study belong to that same lineage. They are not mere reconstructions of the past, but continuations of an ancient relationship between human gesture and geological material. Stone remembers touch.
Research by Verónica Santamaría
Mentored by Frances van Hasselt