Academy Award-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter used indigo in her costumes for the 2016 miniseries Roots as a way to honor enslaved people who cultivated and processed the natural dye in 18th-century colonial America. Today, artists, preservationists, and natural dye specialists have connected with this overlooked history through their own use of indigo dye. 

Join artist Karen Hampton, vice president of the Textile Society of America; artist Kenya Miles, founder of Blue Light Junction, a natural dye garden and educational facility in Baltimore; Elizabeth DuBose (M.F.A., historic preservation, 1993), executive director of Ossabaw Island Foundation; and artist André Terrel Jackson (M.F.A., fibers, 2017) as they discuss the legacy of indigo and how they are preserving and promoting this history through their work. 

This event is presented on the occasion of the SCAD FASH exhibition Ruth E. Carter: Afrofuturism in Costume Design, on view through Sept. 12, 2021.

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