Horse Chestnut

Play in Process

Play is understood as a tool for development, with its presumed natural endpoint at adulthood. Negative socio-cultural attitudes frame adult play as frivolous and a deviation from productivity - the “opposite of work.” As such, adult play needs to be disguised in euphemisms: hobby, pastime, exercise, scenario, or sit neatly within the bounds of culturally-sanctioned spaces, like theatre or holidays. But play is more than just an activity, it’s a state of mind where reality and imagination are combined in exploration of different ways of relating to the external world. It is a threshold between reality and fantasy - leaving one thing without having fully left it, and entering something else without fully being a part of it. As the recipient of the 2023 hcma Vancouver Artist in Residence, Franklin St. Studio proposed a material research project that used the UV fluorescent properties of a common urban tree as the foundation for wide-ranging material experimentation, which was based on simple scientific principles and rigorous data-gathering, but guided by curiosity and amusement.

The horse chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum) is found widely throughout Vancouver. Within the leaves, seeds, and bark of this common species is a substance with an uncommon property called aesculin. This natural dye fluoresces blue upon exposure to ultraviolet light when the aesculin molecule’s electrons are pushed into an “excited state,” which is a higher-energy arrangement than where the electrons are most stable, releasing the extra energy up as visible light. For the first step of the project, horse chestnut branches were harvested from downed trees, or branches impinging on sidewalks or roadways, and segmented into usable sections.

Following the harvest of the branches, a replicable aesculin extract recipe was produced. The extract was then integrated into different material expressions of this UV fluorescent phenomena: foams, paints, bubbles, plastics, crystals, concrete and more. Considering that UV fluorescence has limited obvious utilitarian function and is ephemeral in nature removes assumptions of its application. And using delight as the guide in the material design process encourages myriad - and often surprising - pathways of enquiry.

This UV-fluorescent materials research has facilitated a more flexible mindset that engages in play as a practice in combining novel approaches in the pursuit of creative solutions. Whilst play may appear frivolous on the surface, it engages with diverse ideas and risk-taking behaviour that would not be considered under other circumstances. Play connects us to the fleeting moments, to each other, to ourselves, and to the wider world, laying the mental mechanisms for future work as yet to be discovered.

Making process

Branches of Horse Chestnut were collected and used to distil an extract using water and baking soda. That extract was then integrated into various other bio-based material recipes.

Text submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank. For information about reproducing (a part of) this text, please contact the maker.