After four years of research, the designer Heleen Sintobin and the organic scientist María Boto Ordóñez present an overview of dyes in an exhibition in the Z33, the Belgian Hasselt Museum of Contemporary Art. Your solution for the environmental color industry? Structure colors: no pigments, but structures that change depending on the incidence of light.
In contrast to pigments, structural colors are not physical colors, but optical effects. They arise because light interacts in a material with the microscopic structures. In nature, these structures occur in bird feathers or butterfly wings.
The designer Heleen Sintobin and the organic scientist María Boto Ordóñez form the structures in feathers and wings using a synthetic form of skin pigments, the melanin. In a laboratory you produce a color film that can be applied to textiles, but also on many other surfaces, from paper to metal.
To explain what structural colors are, Sintobin and Boto Ordóñez show a photo of a blue butterfly. Slowly zoom in. In the microscopic view of the wing you can see no blue color, but a number of tiny forms that are connected. With a little imagination you can see small screws or even Christmas trees that are merged with each other. The blue color cannot be seen anywhere in the shapes: it is in the structure. “A butterfly wing has a three -dimensional structure,” explains Sintobin. “Depending on how the light falls on this structure, you get a different color.”
An example that Sintobin likes to lead is the tank of a beetle. In the past, fossils were discovered by beetles who are 49 million years old. Despite this age, the color of the beetles, in turn, was preserved blue. “The structure is included in the fossil. You can still see the color of the beetle,” says Sintobin.
Together with Boto Ordóñez, Sintobin researched possible applications at the Genter KUSCHK art college. The results of research and the resulting works of art will be exhibited in the Z33, the Haus for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture in Hasselt until summer.
A new generation of dyes
In the introduction to the exhibition, the urgent need for a new generation of dyes such as the structural colors is explained. The color industry has enormous effects on the environment.
The natural dyes of the past, such as Waid, Krapp and the exotic indigo, were displaced by synthetic pigments during the industrial revolution. “But these are petroleum -based and very environmentally harmful,” says Sintobin.
The synthetic dyes are described in the exhibition as the first generation of new dyes. At that time, they triggered an enormous revolution both scientifically and aesthetically. Suddenly manufacturing bright colors were able to develop, from Mauve to fluoron green. “You can hardly make bright colors from natural pigments. You need a toxic layer for this,” explains Sintobin.
In 2025, the design world is not satisfied with this. Researchers have been working for a long time: inside and designers: inside on biological alternatives for synthetic colors, from bacteria to algae. Boto Ordóñez even researched algae as pigments. These bio -based dyes are referred to as a second generation in the exhibition. “The interesting thing is that you breed this pigments in a laboratory environment and can therefore control much better,” explains Sintobin. “You no longer depend on weather conditions, as with plants. We also managed to produce a bright color, fluorosa, on algae base.”
Boto Ordóñez began her research with algae in 2016, but lost interest in it over time. “The process was not scalable, it is not economically profitable,” says the Spanish bioscientist. In addition, the dyes are quite unstable, she admits. UV radiation and oxidation attack the colors. Over time, the pigments can fade or even disappear. The pigments that we gain from more traditional dye plants have the same problem. So it is time for a third generation of new dyes, the researchers postulate: inside in their exhibition.
In contrast to natural or bio -based pigments, structural paints receive a more interesting color over time. Depending on the incidence of light, the color can change, but it will not fade. When the surroundings become wetter, the researchers found: in the laboratory, the color can better come into their own instead of gradually disappearing. Sintobin called this discovery a “happy coincidence”. “The structure can change and thus also the color, since the light falls on the new structure in other ways,” adds Boto Ordóñez.
Are structural colors and not pigments the solution to really make the industry sustainable? The curator of the exhibition in Z33, Annelies Thoelen, believes that. “Imagine that you can apply structures to products in the future instead of having to dye them,” she says. “Then we could skip this environmentally harmful step.”
Fragile works of art
As the exhibition shows, structural colors can be applied to all possible materials. Although pigments from the clothing industry formed the starting point for research by Boto Ordóñez and Sintobin, you can hardly see textiles in the exhibition hall. Only paratroops from 100 percent polyester is used in a work by the Greek artist Dimitris Theocharis, who worked on his installation in the KUSK cellar for three months.
The special thing: The previous generations of natural and biobased pigments generally do not adhere to plastics. “In addition, structural colors work best on black fabric,” explains Sintobin and points to the color of the installation. “The blacker the underground, the more contrast, the more bright the colors. With pigments it is much more difficult to color black materials.”
Sintobin himself tested the structural colors for silk, but for the exhibition she made three works made of ceramics, paper and titanium. On the Ecology of Color website, Sintobin and Boto Ordóñez present the results and color palette per material.
It is striking that one material is better suited for the color structure or that it gets it better than the other. In most cases, the structure is very sensitive. Let us take the work of the artist Ann Veronica Janssens made of corrugated glass. Their cleaner found the surface dusty and wiped over it with a dust towel. As a result, one of her works that does not hang in the Z33, but is set up at home, is now a bit matt.
“The color has disappeared at the contact point,” says Sintobin. “It’s like touching a butterfly wing. If you do it, black powder comes on your fingers. At that moment you have destroyed the structure and the color has disappeared together with the structure.”
The steel work by Tiina Pyykkinen, a Finnish artist who came on board in an early phase of research, are also sensitive. “There is more than 50 hours of work in every work of art. A mistake and the whole process would be ruined,” says Sintobin.
A supervisor explains that Sintobin’s largest work of art, a ceramic feather dress, is just as fragile. Small damage was created when sewing the ceramic plates with cords. Logistically, it was also a challenge to transport the large work of art from Ghent to Hasselt without damaging it. “With ceramics, this is easier than with glass or steel,” Sintobin relativizes. “Ceramic has an irregular surface so that you can still touch them with gloves. When I rub it, the structure disappears. But I had more freedom of movement than my colleague Tiina.”
The work of rubber from the fashion designer Marlou Breuls and the metal wall objects by the designer Bram Vanderbeke with a touch much better. Of course, visitors are asked to keep their hands with themselves. “This is the nice thing about working with artists: inside,” says Sintobin. “Every: R has expertise in a material, and everyone wants to experiment. So we accidentally found out that certain materials withstand touches. Bram worked by hand, then let the film grow on it and partially brushed it down.
Wanted: the correct coating
A solution to maintain structural colors could be a coating, a protective layer that is often found in the clothing industry, for example in functional textiles.
“But the problem is that the structure lies in the nano area, so coating would also have to be developed in the nano area,” says Sintobin. “We reach the limits of an art college. Actually, a doctoral thesis in chemistry would have to start with space to experiment.
After four years, research and thus the contract of Sintobin and Boto Ordóñez have been concluded. Boto Ordóñez is still connected to KUK, and both researchers continue to work with the artist Tiina Pyykkinen via the Finnish cultural institution Suomen Kulttuurirahasto. After the exhibition in the Z33, the duo travels to Helsinki. “Hopefully Finnish museums and institutions are interested in our project,” says Sintobin. “It is a niche that we have found in the course of research, but it offers so many options and solutions.”
Boto Ordóñez and Sintobin have already been awarded for their use of the transformation of the color industry- and thus the entire clothing and design industry. In 2022 they won a Henry van de Velde Award in the design research category.
This article was used with digital tools translated.
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