Invasive Palette

Mono-material Research: Common Buckthorn (Rhamnus Cathartica), 2025
By Gizem Candan

September 17-20, 2025
London Design Festival with The Material Way

Material Matters
Space House
1 Kemble St.
London, UK

Invasive Palette is an immersive installation and an ongoing mono material-based research that investigates the colours through pigments and dyes extracted from different parts of common buckthorn (rhamnus cathartica)—an invasive exotic shrub that threatens the biodiversity of Mount Royal Park in Montreal. The plant is effectively managed by a local organization using a weeding technique and I have been working with them since March 2025 to forage the raw materials.

The light installation features bioplastics made out of agar-agar, charcoal produced by burning the plant and dyes and lake pigments extracted from the bark and berries. By foraging, cooking and burning, the work demonstrates the ephemeral beauty of botanical colours. The methodology of this project is to investigate organic waste streams in the city and create a landscape-focused language through invasive plants in the local environment to build a connection with the more-than-human world.

This work examines material memory, identity, and immigrant diasporas, as the plant was brought to North America in the late nineteenth century as an ornamental plant. It opens up a new perspective of waste economies in the city for the public and encourages them to slow down and imagine the potential colours of our surrounding waste—not just as a product, but as living entities.

TEAM
Founders: Bonnie Hvillum, Rita Trindade
Mentors: Alberte Holmø Bojesen, Sarmite Polakova, Benedetta Pompili
Guest Lecturers: Yussef Agbo-Ola, Sara Martinsen, Michael Marder,
Tobias Øhrstrøm
Exhibition Design: Clara Malling
Production: Clara Malling, Grace Roy Hess
Graphics & Communication: Rita Trindade, Grace Roy Hess

Photos by Jesse Greulich and Philip Vile