The term ‘indigo’ describes a startlingly diverse range of blue dyes derived from precursor compounds residing in several plant species across the world, most notably of the Indigofera genus. In many cultures, the color—redolent of sky, water, nature, divinity, among other things—was highly prized and invariably carried a ritual, spiritual, or otherworldly value. Although indigo is attested in a range of contexts spanning nearly eight thousand years, it was employed primarily in textiles. Indigo-dyed cloths, as well the plants, knowledge, and labor required to produce them, became vital commodities in the transregional and transoceanic networks linking Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas. At one time, South Carolina was an active participant in this broad historical process; from approximately 1740 to 1800, indigo dye was one of the state’s most valuable exports, supplying a burgeoning demand from English textile manufacturers. In this, South Carolina was a space interconnected with many others around the globe. Though home to a native Indigoferaspecies, its indigo industry was built upon the cultivation of a Guatemalan variety introduced via the West Indies. Indigo production in the South was sustained by a plantation economy that relied overwhelmingly on enslaved African labor. And that human trade was sustained, in part, by the bartering of indigo textiles from Africa, India, and the Arab world. As indigo sourced from colonial India came to dominate global markets by 1800, South Carolina’s indigo crops were largely replaced by cotton. Native and naturalized indigo plants continued to be cultivated in limited amounts, however, and are drawing renewed interest for their applications in sustainable farming, organics, heritage practices, and contemporary art.

The eight artists in the exhibition represented diverse ancestries and migrations that parallel the historical pathways of indigo across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas. Arianne King Comer, Hank Herring, Precious Jennings, Monique de La Tour, and Jim Martin live and work in Charleston and its surrounding region. Amina Ahmed, Nyugen Smith, and Genesis Tramaine are based in New Jersey but spent considerable time in Charleston as artists-in-residence at the Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts. In the Aiken-Rhett House, a metonym for the plantation system at large, all their artworks gained a certain poignancy. The many variations of, and in, indigo blue installed across the property spoke to the transregional and transoceanic networks that shaped Charleston and its environs, and that continue to inform experiences of the city to this day.

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