Pink / Lavender / Puce

Although a chemical definition or an RGB or CMYK percentage can specifically define a colour, the naming and perception of a colour often remains ambiguous. Puce, for example, is a colour people find difficult to agree on with its in-between quality of being not quite pink and not quite lavender, with interpretation often dependent on geographical and historical factors. It is this position of ambiguity and abstractedness in reference to colour and language that will form the methodology for this project: The starting point is Puce - deviating between Pink and Lavender.

The basis of the project will be the interaction, application and subsequent presentation of the widest possible range of mediums in a specific spectrum of colours typically associated with Gay, Lesbian and Queer communities; colours that have been used as queer codes, methods of identification, or insults that have been positively appropriated, but which still signify a slip from the norm. Kenneth Anger made a ‘Puce Moment’, Paul Thek claimed pink to be radical, and the Lavender Menace reclaimed an insult into a positive protest and means of identification.

The naming of a colour with language begins a process of identification and representation, and thus the possibility of promotion, but uncertainty to the naked eye remains.This will be an attempt to combine the process of promotion with the slipperiness and uncertainty of both naming colours with language and using colours to name, blurring the methods of brand identity with that of the ambiguous edges of personal identity.