This October British Textile Biennial (BTB) explores invention and innovation in textile production, through indigenous knowledge to space-age technology, from the earliest form of shelter, the tent, to space suits, and from plant-based dyes to the first polymers.
With artists and designers, BTB25 looks back to see how the textile pioneers of 20th century Lancashire were inspired by a bold vision of the future that revolutionised our lives, with companies such as Grenfell in Burnley creating innovative materials that clothed explorers and pioneers in extreme environments and new, synthetic fabrics such as Terylene made in Accrington that modernised ordinary lives with easy care clothing. However, these developments pushed the planet and our use oof its resources to extremes so the innovation of the future must look at ways to reset it and learn from a distant past that is almost lost to us.
British Textile Biennial (BTB) is a free festival of contemporary art, commissioning artists and designers from all over the world to make work inspired by the context and legacy of the textile industry in East Lancashire and its global impact, often in the places that were created by it.
Every other October, East Lancashire becomes an exciting cultural destination that welcomes visitors from all over the country and the world, set against the beautiful backdrop of its moors and hills and hosted by a range of local partners and volunteers who give everyone a warm Lancashire welcome.
Taking over hidden spaces, historic sites and art galleries, such as Blackburn Cotton Exchange, Queen Street Mill Museum in Burnley and the Whitaker, it has been helping transform East Lancashire since 2017 through site-specific art commissions, exhibitions and community projects, commissioning and presenting work by over 126 artists, designers, curators, and creative industry practitioners and welcoming over 200,000 visitors.
Through exhibitions at partner venues, commissions in public spaces, artist residencies and long-term projects with local communities, as well as our year-round education programmes, BTB plays a key role in the cultural development of the area, offering a range of inspirational creative experiences and opportunities for everyone.
BTB23 featured 60 artists, 27 exhibitions across 18 indoor and 2 outdoor venues, and included talks, walks, tours, workshops, and other events with attendances of over 84,000.
Learning from the Land, at the Whitaker, brings together artists whose work reflects upon what nature teaches us and which man can so easily overlook or destroy. Dhara Mehrotra’s site-specific installation, Filamentous, supported by the British Council, celebrates mycelium networks that are the circulatory systems of earth. Found in the soil, mycelia are not only intelligent conduits of exchange within the ecosystems of landscape, but also are potentially revolutionary material of the future, offering a range of sustainable solutions in material manufacture.
There will also be various events at The Whitaker to accompany the exhibition:
