Artists: Dina Danish & Jean-Baptiste Maitre

Our project began in 2020, from a distant memory of a lecture by Dina's former Egyptology professor, Salima Ikram, who recounted the story of a man in Fayoum attempting to recreate the lost recipe for Egyptian synthetic blue. After learning he had passed away, we felt a strong urgency to preserve and carry forward the knowledge he had pursued. This became the starting point of our work. From 2023 to 2025 we spent time in Cairo reconstructing the pigment's original local recipe.

We were drawn to this pigment not only for its historical ties to protection from the Evil Eye in Egypt, but also for its remarkable material qualities—such as its ability to luminesce under infrared light. So far, we’ve developed around 50 test mixtures. After multiple firings, we produced a batch that the Cairo Museum of Egyptology confirmed as authentic Egyptian Blue.

Made by heating natural materials like sand and copper, this synthetic pigment resulted in a vivid blue used as a more accessible alternative to lapis lazuli, a stone long associated with holiness and the divine.