23 Apr 2025 Turner Medal Award Meeting
The Turner Medal is awarded every two years since 1998 by the Colour Group (Great Britain) and recognises distinguished artists or art historians. We are pleased to announce that Dr Dominique Cardon has been selected as recipient of the Turner Medal 2025 for her exceptional contributions to the history and understanding of natural colorants in textiles.
The Turner Medal 2025 meeting will be held on Wednesday 23 April 2025 with Dr Cardon to deliver her Turner Medal Lecture “Colours from the past for a greener world” followed by the medal presentation and celebration reception.
Venue
Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre (C101)
Tait Building
City St George’s, University of London
Northampton Square
EC1V 0HB
Programme
17:00 Welcome and introduction
17:10 Turner Lecture and Q&A
18:10 Medal presentation and photos
18:20 Celebration reception with food and drinks (at Foyer)
Attendance is free but registration is required to allow us the appropriate preparation for the catering and online facilities.
Booking for in-person attendance:
Booking for online attendance:
A Zoom link will be circulated nearer the date.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Dr Dominique Cardon: Biography
Academic and technical training
After studying history and archaeology in Paris (Sorbonne) and Dublin (University College), Ireland, Dominique Cardon learned spinning, weaving and dyeing with natural dyes in Ireland and Peru. Back in the mountains of southern France, she embarked on a lifelong research in historical sources on textile and dyeing techniques, implementing the methods of experimental archaeology and growing a collection of dye plants. In 1988, she joined the UK-based group of researchers into Dyes in History and Archaeology, regularly attending the yearly DHA conferences, four of which she co-organised in France. In 1990, she published her first books on natural dyes.
Research career
After completing a PhD thesis in History (1990, University Paul Valéry-Montpellier III), Dominique Cardon joined the CNRS (National Centre of Scientific Research) in 1991, in research unit CIHAM/UMR 5648, Lyon, where she presently is Research Director Emerita. Her Habilitation thesis (1996, École des Hautes études en Sciences Sociales, Paris), La Draperie au Moyen Âge – Essor d’une grande industrie européenne, was published in 1999.
Research fields
Dominique Cardon is the author of two cross-disciplinary reference books on natural dyes: Le Monde des Teintures naturelles, 2003, updated ed. 2014), « Art and Science of Colour » Prize of the L’Oréal Foundation; and Natural Dyes – Sources, Tradition, Technology and Science, 2007.
Her research in the history of colours and dyeing encompasses:
- Interdisciplinary international collaborations with biologists, ethnobotanists, chemists and environmental organisations: research into the natural colorants sources from different parts of the world; programmes of conservation of traditional knowledge and economic development concerning the production and uses of natural dyes.
- Publications of technical historical sources on dyeing, e.g. dyers’ books illustrated with samples; colorimetric studies of dyed textile samples through spectrophotometric measurements ; curating of international exhibitions on natural dyes.
- Publications of groups of archaeological textiles, with special focus on colours and dye-analyses, e. g. 1st-3rd CE textiles excavated in the Eastern Desert of Egypt; Bronze Age to early CE sites in the Taklamakan Desert, excavated by the Franco-Chinese Archaeological Mission in Xinjiang.
Dominique Cardon’s publications and involvement in programmes of conservation and development of natural dyes from different parts of the world have led to collaborations with UNESCO since 2003 for the scientific coordination of international symposiums on natural dyes in India, South Korea, France, Madagascar and China. She has been awarded the Silver Medal of CNRS in 2011, the UNESCO Medal “Thinking and Building Peace” in 2006 and was made Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in France in 2015 and Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts, des Lettres et de la Culture of Madagascar in 2017 for her contributions to research into natural dyes and dyeing techniques.
Turner Medal 2025 Lecture:
Colours from the past for a greener world
Abstract
As an historian and archaeologist dedicated to research into textile technology, Dominique Cardon very early became fascinated by the colours of the ancient textiles which her position at the French National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS) offered her the marvellous opportunity to study. Since, before the mid-19th century, all colours on textiles were necessarily obtained from natural colorants, her lecture will narrate a lifelong journey of discovery of the world of natural dyes.
Natural colorants, used worldwide by all civilisations since prehistoric periods, are mostly extracted from the plant world, and also from some sea molluscs, sources of the true purple, and some coccid insects, sources of the prestigious scarlet and crimson reds. Their applications concern not only textiles, mats and basketry, but also painting and dyeing of skin, leather, hair and furs, etc. Identifying their use on ancient and ethnological artefacts, and understanding the processes by which they were applied, indispensably require transdisciplinary international collaborations, to which many fellow scholars and friends in the United Kingdom have brought important contributions that will be warmly acknowledged in the lecture.
An aspect of colour research that Dominique Cardon is currently exploring will also be presented, i. e. the unique insight into colour names and colour characterisations that can be gained from historical dyers’ recipe books illustrated with dyed textile samples: what are the CIE Lab chromatic characteristics of samples corresponding to a particular colour name? Do they change much according to the countries and regions where the dyers worked, or over time? The methodological approach combining experimental archaeology, that is reproducing the historical recipes, with spectrophotometric measurements of both the original samples and their reproductions, offers a vast new source of inspiration for experiments at different scales, in colour design, sustainable fashion and textile production. With the emergence of a society more and more conscious of the environmental challenges faced by our globe, and the development of a new « green economy », natural colorants currently attract strong renewed interest, due to their chromatic richness, to the beneficial biological activities presented by most of them and to their potential applications in various industrial branches besides textiles (agro-food and cosmetics, for instance). In her lecture, Dominique Cardon will provide an overview of these developments, drawing from collaborative projects she has participated in, is currently engaged with, or is informed about through her role as the scientific director of various recent international symposiums on natural dyes.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞