Rooted Colour

The idea for Rooted Colour was developed using a Remakery Explore Grant, as part of the Future Makers 2024/25 programme. The Explore Grants were offered to support local Ecological Practitioners with space, equipment, mentoring and seed funding to work on an R and D that would embed their practice in the local community. Through his funding Zoe Burt designed a series of natural dye beds, organised by colour and ideal conditions for the plants, that could be offered to Community Gardens as a growing plan, alongside comprehensive resources for installing the grow spaces. In 2025 this project was developed into a series of workshops, subsidised by the Remakery, that brought together volunteers from four London based community gardens to learn and share knowledge about how to incorporate dye growing in their gardens.

This initial pilot provided the learning needed to develop Rooted Colour into a year long programme with funding from Awards For All Environment Fund. Based on the learning from year 1 we added capacity building for community dye lots to the programme. A Community Dye Lot is a one colour vat big enough to dye up to 20 items of clothing, combining garments in a single vat allows for efficiency in upcycling garments that would otherwise go to landfill, and creating social participation from the community who take part. We intended that developing these dye lots would develop to create a circular economy based around the dyes that were being grown in the community gardens.

In its second year (2026) Rooted Colour has expanded to include twelve Community Gardens, 68 volunteers, industrial designers, architects, dye practitioners and circular business model experts, all exploring a Green Economy based in waste reduction and circularity using ecological materials grown in London.

Phase 1 of the project- growing and harvesting dyes across London has just come to a close, with a group dye lot celebrating the 600g harvest of Coreopsis that was collectively grown. 

Phase 2 is to finalise the design of equipment and a system to offer regular dye lots to the community, where individuals can join in upcycling garments in a group dye bath of locally grown colour. 

Looking forward to 2027. Feedback from the garden volunteers, in 2027 we will be focussing on building a Dye Commons. 

The Rooted Colour Dye Commons will be a central space for gardens to sell seeds, plants and dye stuffs, whilst receiving a share of the income generated. We hope that this development will allow the project to become self-sustaining, as well as supporting further R and D for textile practitioners inspired to use natural dye in their work.