Lucy + Jorge Orta

Homo Mondialis

The 2025 British Textile Biennial will host a survey exhibition of the work in textiles by Lucy + Jorge Orta. From intricate pieces in embroidery appliqué, to sculpture and immersive video installations, the work presented crosses continents from the Antarctic to the Amazon reflecting on humanity’s impact and relationship with the planet. The viewer is invited to travel from the South Pole through jungles, deserts and forests in dialogue with the Homo Mondialis. At its centre, is a major new commission, ‘House of Hair’, which reimagines and reconstructs the traditional Bedouin tent as a speculative response to nomadic living in the extreme scenario of mass desertification.

Exploring traditional vernacular and state-of-the art digital weaving, the resulting dwelling sculpture imagined by Lucy Orta, is constructed from nine immense patterned tapestry panels woven at the TextielLab, Tilburg. The tapestries tell the story of a world drastically altered by climate change, merging histories past-present-future, passing through immense jungles and desert landscapes where scarcity of resources results in conflict, yet from whose ruins emerge alternative forms of life, with new ways of living and being.