Rematerializing Colour

<p>Colour is largely assumed to be already in the world a natural universal that everyone everywhere understands. Yet cognitive scientists routinely<br />tell us that colour is an illusion and a private one for each of us; neither social nor material it is held to be a product of individual brains and eyes<br />rather than an aspect of things.</p><p>This collection seeks to challenge these assumptions and examine their far-reaching consequences arguing that colour is about practical<br />involvement in the world not a finalized set of theories and getting to know colour is relative to the situation one is in – both ecologically and<br />environmentally. Specialists from the fields of anthropology psychology cinematography art history and linguistics explore the depths of colour<br />in relation to light and movement memory and landscape language and narrative in case studies with an emphasis on Australian First Peoples but<br />ranging as far afield as Russia and First Nations in British Columbia. What becomes apparent is not only the complex but important role of colours in<br />socializing the world; but also that the concept of colour only exists in some times and cultures. It should not be forgotten that the Munsell Chart with<br />its construction of colours as mathematical coordinates of hues value and chroma is not an abstraction of universals as often claimed but is itself a<br />cultural artefact.</p>