Future, Past 
The British Textile Biennial (BTB) invited Textile Culture Net (TCN) to develop a special online exhibition that expands the Biennial’s theme through a global perspective.

“Future Past” brings together artists from across the globe whose work explores the conflicted relationship between humans and the universe through textiles, along a sliding scale of power and resistance.
Sandy Van den Brink, 'Fruits of Preservation', 2025, VR & Animation, still. Courtesy of the artist

“Future Past” highlights indigenous knowledge and ancestral practices as sources of new perspectives, while reflecting on histories of displacement and power.

Nominated by Zoe Yeh (Hong-gha Museum)

Taiwanese artist Yang Wei-lin transforms used fabric buffing wheels—once spinning endlessly in factories—into a floating sea of indigo blue. Each wheel is carefully disassembled, hand-dyed with natural indigo, then suspended to shimmer and sway like ocean waves, echoing industrial memory. A tribute to labor, land, and transformation—this is where the worn becomes luminous again.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut nisl metus, accumsan id eros id, vehicula tincidunt nisl. Nulla sit amet urna ut mi tempor euismod. Fusce elementum sapien eget elit sodales fringilla. Pellentesque et nulla vel velit malesuada fermentum vitae vitae justo. Nulla dignissim volutpat interdum. Pellentesque at molestie tortor. Proin magna ante, fermentum ac elementum at, lacinia et arcu.
Nominated by Wumen Ghua @wu.men

'Café Disorient' is an ever-changing traveling installation made as a treasury of Palestinian collective memory. Always painted with the fishnet pattern of the kufiya, it invites visitors to sit under a glowing neon light of Handala - the barefoot child refugee who can only grow up once he returns home. Susanne Khalil Yusef shares Arabic coffee with guests, chatting about life before it’s gone.

Marie Ilse Bourlanges and Liza Prins, 'Flax, baby! Flax!, opera performance, 40’, 2024. Musical compositions by Bergur Anderson and Liza Prins. Photos by Kyle Tryhorn

'Future Past' explores the theme of BTB25, reframing innovation through ancestral knowledge, present-day practices, and speculative futures.

Nominated by @textielmuseum

Jewellery and textile artist @bach_caroline (1995) grew up outside Clermont-Ferrand in central France. The area owes its prosperity to tyre manufacturer Michelin. 'Materialisation' explores the origins of the city's wealth. Bach researched the origin of rubber and the impact of the rubber industry on people and the environment. She translated these insights into six body jewels to confront the wearer with different aspects of rubber production.
Lorem Ipsum...
Flax, baby! Flax!' is an experimental operatic performance written and directed by @marie_ilse_bourlanges and Liza Prins @itllbeokbaby, retracing in four acts flax’s transformation into linen fibres. Twelve performers sing, move, and play sculptural pre-industrial flax tools, weaving songs of labor, love, protest, and care. Past and present merge into a radical, collective voice of solidarity.
“Future Past” brings into dialogue global textile practices, confronting histories of exploitation while imagining new ways of living with materials and the planet.

Nominated by @mill6chat

Ari Bayuaji discovered an abundance of plastic ropes tangled in tree roots on Bali’s coast. These ropes, appearing as an organic part of the trees, inspired him to repurpose them as weaving material. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he started collaborating with local weavers and assistants to turn the plastic waste into artworks. 
Nominated by Bukola Oyebode-Westerhuis

In 'Fruits of Preservation', Sandy Van den Brink amplifies the voices of those who have long been denied agency over their representation. Through an innovative digital approach, it proposes an alternative method to arc'hive the stories and lived experiences of people with roots in the Caribbean. Fruits of Preservation' also embodies the cultural heritage and fashion aesthetics of Kunukeros, local farmers on the ABC Islands. 
'Future Past' explores the relationship between humans and the universe through textile production, from indigenous innovation to space suits.


Nominated by Jill D'Alessandro (@denverartmuseum)

For Kiowa artist Teri Greeves, beadwork began the moment that she was born. In 'Sons of the Sun', Greeves uses stories from Kiowa cosmology, about the Half Boys, whose exploits teach valuable lessons. Greeves explains, through beadwork she shares her experience as a 21st C. Kiowa—like the unknown artists before her.
Nominated by @centralnemuzeumwlokiennictwa

C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska`s performance combining music, literature, film, scenography and costume design references a Soviet-era visions of cosmic conquest. The artists built a giant space suit inspired by Valentina Tereshkova`s (the first woman in space) suit. A performative fashion shows took place inside.
C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska 'Mother Earth Sister Moon', performative fashion show during the opening of the exhibition 'The Splendour of Textiles'. Zacheta, Warsaw, 2013.