Taking over the floor of Blackburn’s Cotton Exchange, the work of four artists and collectives narrates a legacy of environmental and social impact shaped by centuries of textile heritage

With a particular focus on its place across the African continent, artists included: The Nest Collective from Nairobi, who presented their installation and video screening room, Return To Sender, constructed from used garments, known as mitumba in Kenya. These were fashioned into bales to represent the breadth of uncontrolled consumption in the Global North, and the stringent regulations that overtly force the movement of these materials to the Global South.

Thierry Oussou from Benin, who presented an artwork composed of raw cotton from three hectares of land in Benin, farmed by the artist with local workers and agriculture students.

Victoria Udondini in New York State, whose artwork was devised in collaboration with community members, weaving disused clothing to create monumental draped textiles while collecting their stories on notions of colonisation, migration, and cloth.

Common Wealth Theatre from Bradford, who, while working with community co-creators from East Lancashire, presented Fast, Fast, Slow, an interactive catwalk performance that takes the audience on a journey through our relationship to fashion, from Burnley to Ghana, while interacting with a site-specific catwalk made from clothing bales.