Ochre Archive

Iron seeds the imagination.
— Nor Hall, Irons in the Fire

The Ochre Archive serves to celebrate and protect ochre, ie. iron-based pigments, humankind’s oldest natural colors. Our counsel of ochres includes hundreds of rocks and dusts, across the geologic and energetic spectrum, gathered and offered by citizens around Earth. Some examples include spiritual and cultural ochres such as kōkōwai from Aotearoa (New Zealand), specularite from the world’s oldest ochre mine in Ngwenya, Eswatini, and meaningful planetary ochres like GOE (Great Oxidation Event ) 2 billion+ years old goethite from Australia or wastewater vivianite from Taiwanese industrial plants.

Unlike museum collections or archives, the ochre archive is a living entity. Currently we are in an exciting new design phase for the architectural infrastructure, called Ferrfora, a sacred space built to hold, display and grow the archive, which will be constructed on south Whidbey Island in Washington, USA, and completed (hopefully!) by 2027-2028.

Want to participate? Donate to the project. Or write us to offer and share your local earth materials.
Want to learn more? Buy our book or read our research publications (see below).
Looking for more in-depth ochre knowledge? Take our online Ochre Practices workshop series.

QUICK FACTS

≳ 900+ natural ochres and earth pigments (and more enroute)
≳ 50+ countries/territories
≳ 7 continents
≳ Dozens of distinct geologic families

MATERIAL FOCUS

⦔ Ochres from common, fragile, sacred and/or urban places, including climate-endangered areas, “banned” countries and controversial regions.
⦔ Pigments and minerals made from iron-laden minerals, such as hematite, goethite, limonite, biogenic iron, magnetite, maghemite, siderite, vivianite, flos ferri, superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles and others.
⦔ Iron-based soils from colonial-industrial extraction and steelworks, Superfund sites, and toxic land.
⦔ Ochres made or used by nonhumans, including microbes, elephants and vultures.

RESEARCH FOCUS

⦕ Communication with ochres, learning their behavior, capacities, being-ness, language, needs and concerns.
⦕ Support/celebrate Indigenous ochre and pigment-making practices, knowledge, renewal, land return and leadership, and ochre-place words spoken in local, native languages.
⦕ Critical study and revisioning of Euro-American iron-ochre land relationships (with an emphasis on the critical Iron Age origins through to today).
⦕ Study of female-led ritual techniques (that utilize iron earths) from ancestral Northern European, Scandinavian and pre-Abrahamic Iron Age mythologies, including in old folk magic, runic and cuneiform ritual formulas, geomancy, funerary and skeletal ceremony and burial objects.

Support OUR WORK

Ferrafora + the Ochre Archive are an independent woman-led and community-supported arts project, sustained through generous exchange, in honor of Earth’s creative power. We’ve relied solely on planetary friends and citizens to support our work and project goals since 2017. Today we are at a new, critical phase of our vocation and mission.

The best way you can support right now is to give a meaningful donation.

If you are a value-aligned patron or steward who wish to fuel our vision or become a key charitable partner, get in touch with us directly to discuss our non-profit fiscal sponsor, grant-matching opportunities, and reciprocal benefits: heidi@earlyfutures.com. ⩄⩃⩀

RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS + COLLABORATIONS

≳ Gustafson, Heidi. Book of Earth: A Guide to Ochre, Pigment and Raw Color. New York: Abrams, 2023.
≳ Velliky, E.C., Hodgskiss, T., Straffon, L.M., Gustafson, H., Gollifer, A., Haaland, M.M. “The Framework for Ochre Experiences (FOES): Towards a Transdisciplinary Perspective on the Earth Material Heritage of Ochre,” in Deep-Time Images in the Age of Globalization: Rock Art in the 21st Century, edited by Abadía, O.M., Conkey, M.W., McDonald, J. (Springer Cham, 2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54638-9_8
≳ Gustafson, H. and Williams, M. “Undersoil: A Dialogue.” Room One Thousand 11: Sediment (2023).
≳ Gustafson, H. “Memory Keeping” in YOLO Journal, 12 (Spring 2023).
≳ Christensen, C. and Gustafson, H. “Voices of Ochre,” in Dark Mountain, 22: Ark (2022).
≳ Gustafson, Heidi. “Dust to Dust: A Geology of Color” in The Side View (2019).