FLYING ROOTS

Flying Roots is an ongoing artistic–scientific project that mirrors the Bearded Vulture’s remarkable ritual of dyeing its feathers with ferruginous baths with tricolour cyanotype process. In the wild, the vulture transforms iron-rich earth into colour (Margalida A. et al., 2023).
They stain its white plumage in deep oranges and reds as a form of communication and identity. My work recreates this gesture through the tricolor cyanotype, a process in which natural pigments derived from roots, minerals, and plants are layered to form a full CYMK image. Just as the vulture applies iron oxides to its feathers, I apply earth-based colours to cyanotype layers, allowing sunlight and natural chemistry to build the image.

The technique becomes both a tribute and a parallel: a photographic echo of a bird whose survival depends on its intimate relationship with the landscape.Through fieldwork, tricolour cyanotype printing, and ecological storytelling, Flying Roots reveals how colour in nature is not ornamental but functional. By letting natural elements create the final image, the project connects photographic practice to the same materials and processes used by wildlife, inviting viewers to see colour as a living expression of place, adaptation, and communication.

Gypaetus Barbatus Single Tricolour

Gypaetus barbatus is listed as Near Threatened by IUCN