Pondside Plant-based colour workshop with Papahoa Fibreworks

As part of Objectspace’s pondside event programme, join us on Saturday 14 February for a morning workshop with Gina Russell and Seonaid Burnie of Papahoa Fibreworks.

This workshop focuses on accessible colour, encouraging participants to explore plant-based colour using materials you might find in your backyard or on neighbourhood walks.

The session will include examples of common plants and an introduction to different techniques for extracting colour, showing how these methods can produce a range of results.

Participants will work with pre-prepared linen yarn, which they’ll dye during the session and take home to use for weaving, mending, or other creative projects.

This is a practical, hands-on workshop suitable for anyone interested in working with plant-based colour using everyday materials.

All materials and equipment provided.

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Gina Russell sits at the intersection of farming and fashion. A graduate of the BHU Organic College, she studied natural resource cycles to understand where our fibre and dyes could come from and how they can safely return to the earth at the end of their useful life. She has been cultivating linen flax, indigo and other dye plants in a regenerative system where the ‘waste’ from extracting fibre and colour goes back to the earth where it feeds the microbes that nurture her plants. With an ever-growing understanding of the soil she cares for, she hopes to guide a slower, more grounded way to craft, direct from the soil.

Seonaid Burnie is a natural dyer, teacher and textile artist with nearly eight years of experience exploring the creative and ecological potential of plant-based colour. Her journey into natural dyeing began after moving near the Christchurch residential red zone, where the evolving landscape inspired her to experiment with locally sourced plants and seasonal palettes. Originally from Scotland, Seonaid studied textile design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee. In 2019, she founded The Clothworks, a natural textiles company through which she developed her practice as a largely self-taught dyer. In 2025, Seonaid partnered with Gina Russell of Growing Textiles to establish Papahoa Fibreworks, a company dedicated to integrating plant-based colour and fibres into Aotearoa’s textile industry and supporting a resilient, soil-to-soil textile economy.

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This pondside event is made possible by a Boosted crowdfunder – . Our gratitude to everyone who rallied to support Objectspace in Ōtautahi and to match-funders Rātā Foundation, Creative New Zealand and Christchurch City Council.

Images:

[1] Papahoa Fibreworks: Seonaid Burnie and Gina Russell

[2] Seonaid Burnie working in the garden

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