Turner Prize-winning Lubaina Himid presented a major new work held at Gawthorpe Hall in Burnley. Cascading through the structure of Gawthorpe Hall’s Great Barn, 400 metres of Dutch Wax fabric reflect the movement of oceans and rivers that have been used to transport cotton across the planet and over centuries.

In the grandiose surroundings of Blackburn Cotton Exchange, three artists, Jasleen Kaur, Jamie Holman and Masimba Hwati interrogated complex issues through family histories and lived experiences across three continents to reveal the residual cultural identities of the British Empire.

In the year marking the 90th anniversary of Gandhi’s historic visit to Darwen, Khadi was an ambitious new installation by Bharti Parmar comprising archival images of the Mahatma’s visit, artefacts from Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery and delicate drawings and sculptures made from Khadi paper.

As part of the brands 50th Anniversary celebrations global sportwear icons C.P. Company will be taking part in the British Textile Biennial 2021 programme, presenting a retrospective dedicated to five decades of Italian Sportswear, and Massimo Osti’s lasting legacy.

Homegrown/Homespun is a ground-breaking regenerative fashion project in collaboration with designer Patrick Grant, his social enterprise Community Clothing and North West England Fibreshed.

In the beautiful Arts & Crafts interior of a former mill owner’s house, Haworth Art Gallery, Accrington, fashion historian Amber Butchart presented an exhibition with pieces chosen from the Gawthorpe Textile Collection.

For BTB21 Raisa Kabir presented work at Queen Street Mill as a continuation of her Art in Manufacturing residency, commissioned by The National Festival of Making and the British Textile Biennial in 2019.

Brigid McLeer presented a memorial to the hundreds of workers who die in factories and sweatshops across the world that supply the global garment industry.

In a public call out, people from all over the world were invited to share their own story of migration and belonging in this crowd-sourced collection of stitched hoops curated by Jamie Chalmers (Mr X Stitch), featuring representations from people’s journeys and reflections on their personal heritage.

The Woke Denim project was a conscious photo series about the modern-day fight for civil rights, following the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020. The project drew focus on young people, a generation of activists who refuse to say yes to injustice but demand to be heard not just in towns and cities but on a global scale with the help of modern-day technology.

Adil Amin was born in Blackburn after his parents moved here from Pakistan in the late 1970’s. After graduating with a Foundation Degree in Fine Art from Blackburn College, Adil worked in a variety of jobs while developing his painting practice.

Shabnam is a film that explored the historic and continuing relationship between East Lancashire and Bangladesh in a textile tug-of-war

The 62 Group of Textile Artists is an artist-led group with an international reputation whose aim is to question and challenge the boundaries of textile practice and to encourage a greater awareness of the art form. The membership is worldwide and consists of approximately 60 exhibiting members, comprising both established artists and recent graduates.

The tension between the industrialisation of cotton manufacturing and traditional cottage industry was the starting point for James Fox’s work that explored the history of protest and punishment via the Lancashire loombreaker riots of 1826.

For BTB21 Azraa Motala created work that untangled culturally inherited expectations and the overlapping aspects of her own identity as a young British-Asian Muslim woman, exploring the way in which women from the diaspora have been represented in both the past and the present day, particularly through their dress.

Portrait Youth was a participatory research project, led by staff from the Manchester Fashion Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University.

John Tiney harvested T-shirts from charity shops, to present a series of works from a “creative production line” of archiving, wearing, staining, screen-printing, stretching and treating which bears the physical marks of his process.

Textile Artist Sharon Brown presented new work at Queen Street Mill which reimagined found letters and documents connected to the history and workers of Lancashire cotton mills.

In 2020 Uncultured Creatives ‘Flashback’ built a digital archive of ‘acid house’ activities manifesting in Blackburn and East Lancashire from 89-91.

Sarah-Joy Ford presented a site specific installation at Accrington Library of her quilt: Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, which responded to Jeanette Winterson’s novel.

In association with C.P. Company, the Westminster Menswear Archive presented an archive selection celebrating the brand’s 50th anniversary with a display in Darwen Library.

There is a long tradition of quilts and tapestries documenting social and political history. Threads of Survival followed that tradition. An exhibition of quilts made during the lockdown period by groups and individuals across the country reflecting on life during the pandemic and the role of the NHS.

Patterns of Migration was a project about sharing stories through clothing and textiles, exploring themes of home and belonging. The focus of the project was on clothing and textile objects from across the world, their journeys, and the lived experiences of their owners.