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.

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.

The results of the 2021 Homegrown Homespun project were displayed in an exhibition at Blackburn Museum as part of BTB21. The project has since received further funding, and will begin again in the spring of 2022, follow our social media channels for regular updates.

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.

A collaboration with the Italian sportswear brand C.P. Company and the Westminster Menswear Archive exploring identity through styling and portrait photography with young men from Blackburn and Darwen.

Turner Prize-winning Lubaina Himid presented a major new work held at Gawthorpe Hall in Burnley.

Alex Zawadzki curated new works from three artists who interrogate complex colonial histories, personal archives, family histories and lived experiences; to reveal the residual cultural identity that exists as a consequence of the British Empire and colonisation.

Khadi, by Bharti Parmar took the textile archive of Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery as its focus, and explored how cotton, specifically Khadi, a homespun cloth, represented Indian independence from British rule.

James Fox’s work at Helmshore Mill explored the history of protest and punishment via the Lancashire loombreaker riots of 1826

Creative Lancashire presented a series of panel discussions in collaboration with fashion historian, Amber Butchart, to further explore the topics and questions raised by the range of artist commissions across BTB21.

Inspired by The Textile Manufactures of India, an 18 volume set of fabric sample books assembled in 1866 by John Forbes Watson, a copy of which is held in the Harris Museum, Preston, Kabir worked at John Spencer Textiles in Burnley to create her own personal woven pattern designs that relate to collective imaginings of place and belonging in East Lancashire.

The 62 Group of Textile Artists presented an exhibition of contemporary textile art, focusing on the global context of textiles.

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.

Reetu Sattar explored the contemporary tensions between traditional cultures in the Bangladeshi diaspora and the forces of modernity, through the ever-evolving history of the cotton industry. This work was shown in Queen Street Mill, Burnley.

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 Hoodie Series’ captured young Asian men who wear C.P. Clothing, re-appropriating the brand from the traditionally white football terrace culture of the Northwest, which had, in turn, appropriated it from Italy.

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.

The RV Furor Scribendi’s returned to Lancashire from Coventry City of Culture, be be part of British Textile Biennial was unfortunately delayed due to the recent breach on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. However she will be back in action soon!

Follow Super Slow Way and Small Bells Ring on Instagram for regular updates and future opportunities involving the RV Furor Scribendi. 

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.

Inviting writers to respond to the Flashback archive, this publication also featured an exclusive collaboration with design studio ‘Dorothy’ who have produced a limited edition print mapping the location of Blackburn parties. Contributors included Adelle Stripe, Fergal Kinney, Jamie Holman, Alex Zawadzki, Anna Wood, Emma Warren and Bob Singh.

Sarah-Joy Ford presented a site specific installation at Accrington Library of her quilt: Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, responding to Jeanette Winterson’s novel. The digitally embroidered, white work quilt stitches moments inspired by the narrative, whilst embellishing her own connecting threads of experience.

Throughout BTB21, people across the town made patches to send messages of positivity and love.

A collection of quilts made by groups and individuals across the country reflecting on the pandemic and the role of the NHS.