General Assembly Loire Summer Residency

During my residency, I immersed myself in pigment-making and alchemy. I set up an apothecary-style workspace where I processed minerals, bone, plant and metal from Azay-le-Rideau, and nearby, into pigments, inks and art tools, experimenting with their transformations through processes of fire, water, and time. This practice was both material and symbolic: a dialogue between local ecology, historical craft, and personal narratives of belonging.

Alongside the hands-on work, I wrote a manuscript titled An Alchemist’s Key to Azay-le-Rideau. This text documents my colour journey in the Loire, interweaving pigment recipes, field notes, and fragments of local history. The manuscript serves as both a practical record and a poetic reflection, part recipe book, part alchemical journal, capturing how colour becomes a vessel for memory, place, and transformation.