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 our moors and hills and hosted by our 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 Museum in Rossendale, we have 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.
Each Biennial casts a new perspective on the role that textiles play in the past, present and future of our world.
Watch this space for what it will be in 2025!
BTB25 TAKES PLACE FROM
2 OCTOBER TO 2 NOVEMBER 2025
Spotlight
BTB25 - Save the date!
BTB25 Announced for 2 October – 2 November 2025
PIONEERS OF THE MATERIAL WORLD – from sea snails to Star Wars
In October 2025, the British Textile Biennial (BTB) explores invention and innovation, past, present and future, 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.
Spotlight
Current Projects
The biennial is complemented by a year-round program of research, residencies, and community engagement projects; developing long term relationships between artists and local communities around shared textile heritage and stories. Some of these have outcomes within our main festival programme, others find homes and points of presentation in between.
This year we have been working on a number of commissions and projects that will be presented during the early part of 2025.
