Future Past Online Panel #1

Global Perspectives on Textile Art & Culture

This was an online panel discussion that was hosted on Zoom.

Expanding on Future Past — the digital exhibition co-curated by the British Textile Biennial and Textile Culture Net — this online panel moderated by Laurie Peake explored how textiles carry the traces of industry, labour, and the natural world, reflecting on post-industrial legacies, extraction, and material transformation within global textile culture.

This online panel expanded on the themes explored in Future Past, the digital exhibition co-curated by the British Textile Biennial and Textile Culture Net (TCN). Bringing together artists from across the globe, Future Past examined the complex entanglement between humans and the universe through textiles — from ancestral knowledge and material experimentation to speculative visions of the future.

Building on these ideas, the discussion delved into post-industrial legacies and the use of natural resources in contemporary textile practice. The curators reflected on how artistic and curatorial approaches can expose the ecological, political, and social histories embedded in materials, while imagining new modes of making grounded in care, resistance, and transformation.

With:

• Sjouk Hoitsma, Head of Collections, TextielMuseum, Tilburg, Netherlands
• Alessandra Tempesti, Curator of the Lottozero Kunsthalle, Prato, Italy
• Takahashi Mizuki, Executive Director and Chief Curator, CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile), Hong Kong
• Zoe Yeh, Director and Curator, Hong-Gah Museum, Beitou, Taipei

Part of the ongoing collaboration between BTB and TCN — a global network connecting textile institutions — this event continues their shared exploration of textiles as a space for collective reflection and cultural exchange.