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The Society of Dyers and Colourists (SDC) started in 1884 based in Bradford; it was
a group that got together at Bradford Technical College to try and share information about
the new dyes that were being created back then. So the SDC's always had an education
slant. We're still based in Bradford here at Perkin House which used to be an old wool
ware house and it's the home of what used to be called the Colour Museum now called
the Colour Experience so we became an educational charity in the 1960s and we also were given
a Royal Charter so the SDC can award qualifications for people in the industry which now tends
to be mainly abroad because the textile industry is not as strong as was in the UK. The majority
of textile manufacture takes place overseas so we have members right across the world
now and we provide training courses for them and my role is to provide education activities
for schools and colleges and the general public. I've been involved with the Young Peoples'
Programme as a presenter for the last couple of years and the opportunity of it moving
to Bradford seemed too good a chance to miss really so I'm presenting as part of the Young
Peoples' Programme this year doing Get up and Glow which is the Science behind glow
sticks and we're hosting this event here as well today. It was an opportunity for us to
get a bit more involved with the Science Festival because it just seemed to fulfil so many of
our educational aims and it just seemed to make so much sense really. Usually when school
groups come along we'll provide a workshop activity for them which could be science-based
around colour; looking at light and colour and how we see things or it could be more
of an art-based subject; doing some textile printing perhaps or batik or tie-dye; natural
dyes, synthetic dyes because we work with children right from nursery age all the way
through the students in colleges and universities and then we also have the interactive gallery
which is just behind me where we use that as another teaching aid so students get a
guided tour around the interactive, an opportunity to explore them for themselves to find out
a bit more behind the science behind light, colour and perception and that sort of thing.
There are always people who remember coming here with their school; come through as children.
One interactive that people seem to remember is the blue food, we have a plate of blue
food and the gallery, the museum as it was, has gone through a whole range of different
changes over the years. It started about 30 years ago so there isn't very much that was
in the original museum but the blue food we've just got to keep that in because so many people
ask about it and everybody seems to remember it when they've been as a child. It's an adult
only event based around the theme of senses so it's been organised as part of the Science
Festival's Public Programme and we're hosting the event so we've got all sorts of different
presenters in here looking at different senses so we've got Ben Craven looking at visual
perception and that sort of sense, we've got people looking at the science of taste, smell,
how people respond to music, how people can make music and then we've got looking at sensory
sculptures and then some people are looking at how you can build a brain, so looking at
how the brain is constructed and how that interprets senses and got a science brainwaves
who are playing about with peoples' senses and some good interactives up there. From
our point of view, tonight and today's event because we've been open during the day, it's
to raise peoples' awareness of the fact that we're still here and we are still very active.
I think because of the nature of the work that the SDC does a lot of it being linked
to the textile industry people think that's it's dying away, it's dwindling but people
will always need clothes and always need textiles it's just it's not necessarily being produced
in the UK to the same extent so I think this evening we'd like people to realise that the
SDC is still here and the Colour Experience is still available for people to come along
and visit but we're no longer open as a public museum so if people can get a group together
or come with a hobby group or an interest group that they attend just ring up and make
a booking and it would be great to see them.