Blue by Katharina Siegel (Photography)
The project is about rethinking something known. It is about the colour blue and its unnatural origins. Blue is used everywhere in commercials, textiles, or packaging today. Not so long ago this was not possible, since blue was not producible like other colours. The way we see and experience blue today is completely different from how it used to be. In the history of most languages, for example, blue was formed as the latest colour word because the colour was so seldomly spoken of, that there was simply no need to have a word for it. Nowadays there are still lots of languages that use the same word for green and blue. Besides that there blue pigments are rare: most things that appear to be blue are in fact not blue. Blue eyes are a good example. You might think the sky or water is blue, but is it really? The colour blue is surrounded by lots of misconception and cultural constructs, that form our opinion about it. ‘Blue’ juxtaposes artificiality with nature.
This video is part of: Rietveld Uncut 2020
For the fourth consecutive time, the Rietveld Uncut team has worked towards an exhibition of these projects in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, this year under the title Relating (to) Colour. Students investigate "colour" from different perspectives and meanings.
Due to government measures to control the coronavirus, the Rietveld Uncut exhibition and the Studium Generale conference week in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in March 2020 were cancelled. Participants were asked to create digital translation of their projects and share this with the online audience.