A multisensory work in memory of an extinct butterfly
"Engrave Your Color in Marble" is an installation in memory of a vanished butterfly, the Xerces Blue (Glaucopsyche xerces). Many butterfly species have disappeared or will disappear due to pollution and the reduction of their habitats.
A nanostructural color
The magnificent blue-purple color of this butterfly is a structural color, resulting not from pigments but from the nanostructure of the scales that make up its wings. It is optical interference that generates its color, and therefore, it does not degrade over time, as is the case with pigments.
Residence in the Troyes Nanotechnology Laboratory
Cleanroom experiments at UTT in Troyes, with Margaux Gaillard, Anna Rumyantseva, and Maryon Djavadi-Esfahani.
Nanoscopic-scale treatment of stone and marble surfaces aims to best restore their bright and delicate color. Unlike the ephemeral lives of butterflies and their fragility, engraving this structure into marble or stone allows its structural color to be inscribed and preserved for millions of years, much like fossils.
Since structural colors are due to the structuring of matter, rather than pigments, the color itself can be fossilized, as is the case with this
plume. Scientists discovered it fossilized, and the nanostructure responsible for
Its iridescent colors have been preserved for 40 million years. It was upon discovering this article showing that structural color could be fossilized that I had the idea to engrave color into marble. Nanodrawing on stone could indeed make it possible to generate a color that is stable over time.
Preserving only the butterfly's color will not bring this extinct species back to life. It can only be a tribute to its beauty, to express, on the contrary, all our regrets that we will never see it again.
