Pigments are so much more.

Working from art, science, and education backgrounds, Sierra Weir is a ‘pigment practitioner’ focusing on wild pigments found near waterways in historically mountainous and polluted Pittsburgh, or Dionde:gâ. Sierra’s art practice is heavily influenced by her studies in pigment biochemistry, her work with a local environmental non-profit focused on water quality and polluter accountability, and her human and non-human teachers across time and space. By collaborating with foraged native, invasive, and waste-stream pigments found in waterways, she records biological and social relationships between local riparian ecologies and industrialization.

Sierra’s work also explores the idea of wild pigments as tools of (re)connection, which she believes is an essential solution in the face of ongoing climate disaster. Pigments can connect humans to deep time, to evolution, to emotion, to the minutiae that suddenly appears when we begin to pay attention, and also to the realities of colonialism, pollution, and the human waste stream.

A deeper and more reciprocal relationship with life can only be attempted when colonial harm is acknowledged and cultural + non-human knowledge is prioritized. I am grateful to have had many amazing teachers in my life and look forward to keep learning and being. Thank you to those who have stewarded the land for so long, to those who hold wisdom, and to this living place.