Lubaina Himid is the 2017 Turner Prize winner and Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire. During the past 30 years she has exhibited widely, both in Britain and internationally, with solo shows that include Tate Modern, Transmission Glasgow, Chisenhale London, Peg Alston New York and St Jorgens Museum in Bergen, Lubaina represented Britain at the 5th Havana Biennale and has shown work at the Studio Museum in New York, Track 17 in Los Angeles, the Fine Art Academy in Vienna and the Grazer Kunstverein.

Himid’s work can be found in public collections including Tate, the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Arts Council England, Manchester Art Gallery, The International Slavery Museum Liverpool, The Walker Art Gallery, Birmingham City Art Gallery, Bolton Art Gallery, New Hall Cambridge and the Harris Museum and Art Gallery Preston.

Patrick’s career in fashion has spanned over a decade when in 2005, after leaving a career in Engineering, he took over as Director at Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons. In 2015 Patrick purchased the ailing Blackburn clothing manufacturer Cookson & Clegg, saving the factory from closure. This was followed in 2016 with the launch of social enterprise Community Clothing in response to the extreme challenges facing the British clothing and textile manufacturing industry earning him support and praise from across the political spectrum.

Patrick is a regular on television and radio as a commentator on the British fashion, clothing and textile industries. He has been a contributor to several major television but is best known for his role in the BBC2 Series The Great British Sewing Bee. In 2018 Patrick was named Co-Chair of HRH The Prince of Wales’s charity ‘Future Textiles’, an organisation working to sustain skills and create jobs in the UK’s garment making industry.

Tony is the founder and Group Chief Executive of Lancashire-based Panaz Limited. Formed in 1986, the company today exports to 60 countries, operating worldwide through subsidiary companies in Europe and the USA and a global network of distributors.

Tony’s activities and interests extend far beyond the Burnley boardroom among other things he is also currently a member of the Court of the Furniture Makers’ Guild and Charity and member of the Manchester University Department of Material Science Industrial Advisory Group and Chair of Marketing Lancashire. Tony was made an OBE by Her Majesty the Queen in the 2010 New Year’s honours, bestowed a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire in 2016 and appointed The High Sheriff of Lancashire for year 2018.

Jamie Holman was commissioned as artist-in-residence in 2017 and, with an evolving arc of work exploring the contemporary legacy of the textile industry here in Lancashire, became BTB Associate Artist in 2019. Jamie’s work is multi-disciplinary and often fabricated using industrial processes or with heritage crafts makers and artisans.

Jamie also produces work as one half of Uncultured Creatives, a collaboration with producer and curator, Alex Zawadzki, informed by the cultural heritage of working class communities that often lacks visibility.

Jamie’s work has been acquired by The Government Art Collection, Manchester Art Gallery and Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery in addition to private collections in the U.K. and internationally. Jamie’s studio is in Blackburn and he is represented by The Second Act Gallery.

Amber Butchart is a curator, writer and broadcaster who specialises in the cultural and political history of textiles, dress and design. She has curated exhibitions for the Fashion & Textile Museum and the British Textile Biennial, where she is an Associate Curator and host of the Cloth Cultures podcast. Her last exhibition was The Fabric of Democracy: Propaganda Textiles from the French Revolution to Brexit.

Amber also researches and presents documentaries for TV and radio, including A Stitch in Time: a six-part series for BBC Four that fused biography, art and the history of fashion to explore the lives of historical figures through the clothes they wore. It was described as “snappy and engaging” by The Guardian, “hugely enjoyable” by The Telegraph and “mesmerising” by the Radio Times. She is the history consultant and regular on-screen historian for BBC One’s Great British Sewing Bee.

You can listen to Amber on our podcast series ‘Cloth Cultures’ by following this link.

Alex Zawadzki is a gallerist and curator who has been working on BTB projects since 2021, producing and curating The British Invasion, as well as the series of exhibitions, installations and stage build in The Exchange by Thierry Oussou, Victoria Udondion, NEST Collective and Common Wealth in 2023.

The narrative of her creative practice focuses on contemporary approaches to social phenomena by exploring the unique and idiosyncratic cultural factors that make us who we are; often reflecting on this through comparisons to transient rituals and the future of folklore. Her exploration of unique cultures has taken her from the North Pole to North Borneo, ultimately leading her back to the field of contemporary art and working with artists to develop their practice into sustainable career paths.

Alex is also the Director & Curator of The Second Act, a contemporary gallery supporting Northern and working class artists and one half of Uncultured Creatives.

Creative Lancashire is dedicated to helping raise the profile of Lancashire’s creative talent, harnessing the economic potential in companies and organisations working in the creative sector.

We work closely with Creative Lancashire to produce the Conversations in Creativity (CIC) programme during the Biennial season. CIC is series of talks and insightful interviews where creatives from across the disciplines explore how inspiration, often from around the world, informs process.

You can view our past CIC events on our event archive.