Celebrating International Colour Day
Events from around the world, celebrating colour
On the 21st of March, the world celebrates International Colour Day (ICD). Well, the world of colour lovers, that is. Many events are being held on (or around) that date, either in person or online. There is plenty to choose from. Below are just some of them, starting, of course, with the Sunday Morning Colour Talk I am hosting together with Jeannette Hanenburg and Inez Michiels, organised by the Interdisciplinary Colour Association Belgium. Join us on the 17th of March!
ICD celebrations aim to develop awareness of the importance of colour phenomena and culture in the broad domains of Art and the Humanities, Science, and Technology.
International Colour Day was established by the International Colour Association in 2009 and has been celebrated ever since.
Why March 21 / the EQUINOX
Every year, March 21 is the “equinox” – aequus (equal) and nox (night). Around the equinox, the night and day are approximately equally long, symbolically relating to the complementary nature of light and darkness, light and shadow expressed in all human cultures. - AIC
Celebrating International Colour Day with ICA-Belgium
Sunday, 17 March 2024, 10h00 - 12h00 CET
ONLINE via Zoom
Join me and ICA-Belgium on the 17th of March for our next online Sunday Morning Colour Talk, celebrating International Colour Day!
Our guests are Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann, a German archaeologist, specialising in the colour reconstruction of ancient sculptures, and Stephen Westland, a British colour scientist and a professor of Colour Science and Technology in the School of Design at the University of Leeds.
Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann will speak about Pigments on Marble: the Polychromy of Greek and Roman Ancient Sculptures. Her reconstructions of ancient sculptures were seen all around the world and are at present on view in the exhibition Antiquity in Colour, at the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren, Belgium.
Stephen Westland will speak about Colour Nowcasting: AI and Sustainability, exploring colour trends in the context of the fashion and textile industry, and the possibility of using AI to predict what colours are trending now - so-called colour nowcasting.
There will be time for Q&A at the end where you can freely ask questions and join the discussion, along with other colour lovers from all around the world!
Colourful Landscape / Vibrant City
Wednesday, 13 March 2024, 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM GMT
ONLINE Seminar
Part I: Invited Talks
Mira Engler, Ph.D. Emerita Professor of Landscape Architecture Zena O'Connor, Ph.D. Colour Consultant, Researcher and Designer
Beichen Yu, Ph.D. Researcher, Designer and Landscape Architect
Leah Rosenberg, Interdisciplinary Artist based in San Francisco
Part II: Discussion
Moderators:
Verena M. Schindler, Art and Architectural Historian
Juan Serra Lluch, Ph.D. Architect, Assistant Professor at UPV
Organized by Dr. Beichen Yu jointly with the Chairs of the Study Group on Environmental Colour Design (SG ECD) of the International Colour Association (AIC) and the Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain.
Participate in this seminar by clicking on the direct link below:
ID: 373 204 837 13
Password: 58GirD
DFZ COLOUR CONNECTIONS - ONLINE
Shades of HERstory: Exploring Women’s Influence on Colour Through History
21 March 2024, 8 pm CET, online
You are warmly invited to join the German Colour Association (Deutsches Farbenzentrum e.V. - DFZ), for an online talk on International Colour Day, Thursday, 21 March 2024 at 8 pm CET.
This colour conversation about Women and Colour will be a joint presentation by German-British museum curator and author Dr. Alexandra Loske and US-American artist Brece Honeycutt.
Dr Alexandra Loske is the Curator of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England, and has recently published a monograph on the English artist Mary Gartside, the first woman to publish a book on colour theory, five years before Goethe’s Doctrine of Colours. Her hand-painted illustrations show a high degree of abstraction, making her a pioneer in the field.
Artist Brece Honeycutt frequently references historical sources and has made colour and materiality a focus of her work, with Gartside being one of her inspirations.
More information here.
FREE Registration
Colour and Poetry: A Symposium VI
21-22 March, 2024, online
Colour & Poetry: A Symposium VI, 21st - 22nd March 2024, is a cross- and inter-disciplinary two-day virtual event held by the Slade School of Fine Art, in celebration of International Colour Day, World Poetry Day and World Pigment Day. The symposium hosts a range of speakers representing the arts and humanities, science, and industry, drawing upon knowledge from within and outside of the UCL community.
More information and registration here.
Phyllis Shillito and her Colour Curriculum (1945-79)
20 March 2024, 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM AEDT
Online & in-person at the Museums of History NSW, Sydney
Colour Society of Australia is celebrating International Colour Day 2024 as a hybrid in-person and online event centred on the colour teaching of pioneering Sydney-based colour and design educator Phyllis Shillito (1895-1980) from the 1940s to the 1970s.
More information and FREE Registration here.
Out of The Blue? Colour as a Strategic Tool in The Built Environment to Engage With The Community
21 Mar 2024, 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. EDT, online
Celebrate International Colour Day with Keynote Guest Speaker, Udo Schliemann, who will focus on colour's use in branding, signage, and building identification for cultural centres, public buildings, and the workplace environment. Colour is inherent to the form, shape and function of these spaces.
As Principal Creative Director at Entro Communications in Toronto, a leading studio for branding, wayfinding and experiential design, Udo will delve into the profound relationship between colour and cultural centres, public buildings, and workplaces.
The lecture will demonstrate the use of colour as a communication tool: how it attracts; lowers the threshold anxiety to enter a building; and creates an identity that users can associate with. The talk provides a viewpoint from a practitioner who has used colour in graphic design as a visual contribution to the humanisation of our built environment, elevating the experience of the everyday citizen from unremarkable or baffling places to pleasurable and engaging ones.
More information and registration here.
Online talk with Sophie Smallhorn
21 March 2024, 5–6 p.m., online
Swedish Colour Centre Foundation (Svenskt Färgcentrum) invites you for an online talk with artist Sophie Smallhorn.
Sophie Smallhorn’s work explores the relationship between colour, volume and proportion. Simple geometry, negative space and the use of flat saturated palettes are key elements in her compositions. Her intuitive and playful use of colour is applied to both larger-scale architectural projects and smaller, wall-based pieces.
RSVP: anmalan@fargcentrum.se
Cost: members free / others 100 sek (contact them if you are an international guest)
The last registration date is March 18
Colour in Context
22 March 2024, 11:00 am-12:15 pm ET, online
The Colour Literacy Project is kicking off its next Forum series: Colour in Context, to celebrate International Colour Day. In this series, they will explore how the spatial, philosophical, cultural and historical contexts all affect the ways we perceive colours. Part 1 focuses on how spatial juxtaposition and illumination impact colour perception, and the challenges we face when attempting to reconcile objective reality and subjective perception.
Valtteri Arstila (Professor of Theoretical Philosophy, Department of Behavioural Sciences and Philosophy, University of Turku) will present THE IDENTITY AND AMBIGUITY OF COLOUR FROM A PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE.
Harald Arnkil (Visual artist, Colour researcher & Author of Colours in the Visual World) will present COLOURS ARE CONTEXTUAL.
More information and Registration here.
Let me know in the comments if you know of other colour-related events celebrating International Colour Day, or if you are planning an activity or an event to celebrate!