Homo Mondialis

The survey exhibition ‘Homo Mondialis’ at the 2025 British Textile Biennial traces Lucy Orta's textile-led practice over the past twenty years, shaped by Studio Orta expeditions undertaken with scientists to environmentally sensitive regions of the planet, from Antarctica and the Amazon to the Arabian desert.

Over thirty artworks on exhibition draw upon research undertaken in regions where natural habitats are increasingly depleted and indigenous traditions threatened. Techniques of embroidery, appliqué, patchwork, weaving and costume translate fieldwork into tactile, poetic forms. Immersive installations and performances filmed on location seek to embody humanity’s enduring relationship with the environment and the ancestral knowledge that enabled people to survive in the most challenging conditions while using the earth’s resources respectfully.

Curated by Artistic Director Laurie Peake, the exhibition is articulated through five biomes, where visitors are invited to travel across continents and oceans, from the polar ice cap to the jungle, from the desert to the forest.

THE DESERT
At the centre of the exhibition in The Desert biome is the newly commissioned textile-sculpture 'Bayt Al Sha’ar – House of Hair' (2025), based on a traditional Bedouin tent Lucy encountered in the Saudi Arabian desert during a field trip in 2024.

Suggesting a new paradigm for future living, rather than the traditional Al Sadu weaving technique, the 'Bayt Al Sha’ar' was woven on state-of-the-art digital Jacquard looms at the TextileLab in Tilburg. Nine immense tapestries, each measuring 170 × 170 cm and incorporating over 80 colours, are assembled to create a 5.10 × 3.40 × 2.50 metre sculptural structure.

The jacquard images are translated from Lucy’s research and practice of drawing and collage. They depict a speculative world drastically altered by climate change, where scarcity of resources results in conflict and displacement, yet hope persists as resilient desert species flourish among the ruins. The two threshold tapestries Gaia with Pleiades position the earth goddess Gaia as both guide and witness to past and future events. Others function as maps, drawing on celestial navigation and ancient cosmologies to understand humanity’s place within the natural world. The sequential narrative reflects the cyclical nature of changing environments, from abundance to scarcity, to conflict, migration and nomadic living, and the possibility for renewal.

Alongside research into Arabian vernacular architecture, Lucy visited Wadi Hanifah, a desert valley west of the city of Riyadh, with botanists from the National Centre for Vegetation Cover Development and Combatting Desertification (NCVC). The astonishing diversity of plant species surviving in extreme temperatures and drought conditions is the focus an ongoing collaboration with NCVC.

Lucy translated over one hundred endemic desert plants, shrubs and trees into meticulous drawings, which in turn became the patterns for 'Wadi Hanifah Embroidery Landscape' (2024) measuring 70 × 70 cm each. Embroidery-appliquéd silk vegetation is associated with geometric forms that carry corresponding symbolic meanings within Al Sadu weaving traditions.

THE JUNGLE
Participating in two scientific expeditions to observe the effects of climate change on the Amazon rainforest in Peru and Brazil, Studio Orta has amassed an extensive photographic archive of plant species that serves as inspiration for the two works presented.

‘Fabulae Florae Herbarium’ (2010-2022) is composed of a selection of larger-than-life flowers fashioned in diverse textiles and stitched onto brightly coloured canvases each measuring 70 x 70 cm.

In 'Lifeguard Amazonia' (2016), textile flowers are laid upon a long stretcher-bed tarpaulin. The stretcher bed is carried by a human figure, yet the figure is also integrated into the tarpaulin. This dual position points to the complex interconnected nature of things: the extractive practices leading to the degradation of rainforest biodiversity, vulnerability and survival, and the need for greater care and empathy for living beings.

The large wall poem 'Gaia Meets Progress' (2022) is composed of forty embroideries that relate, verse by verse, a conversation between the ancestral mother Earth, Gaia, and her more rational modern antithesis, Progress, revealing the conflictual relationship between technology and the natural world. Written in collaboration with eco-poet Mario Petrucci, the poem also forms the original soundtrack to the film 'Amazonia' (2010), presented in an immersive double-screen and audio environment.

THE FOREST
The immersive installation 'Symphony for Absent Wildlife' (2014–2020) comprises nineteen costumed figures, using wool felt as both medium and motif, alongside a video installation. The two complementary works draw on the history of European colonial trade and its impact on indigenous cultures and wildlife in North America to recount a story of cultural and environmental loss.

From the late seventeenth century, point blankets were woven in UK mills and exported to Canada where they were traded for beaver pelts needed for the manufacture of top hats. Point blankets were adopted by First Nations peoples, who ultimately abandoned their traditional clothing along with associated practices and beliefs. Lucy crafts felt blankets into costumes; masks and tailcoats depicting animals and birds connected with traditional spirit belief systems, as well as those pushed towards extinction through high-yield hunting practices, including bison, beavers and wolves.

The film interweaves performative sequences. Unmasked musicians rehearse the 'Symphony for Absent Wildlife' on hand-crafted wooden bird whistles that mimic native wildlife. It cuts to masked creatures roaming Banff National Park on the traditional territories of the Stoney Nakoda, Ktunaxa, Secwepemc, Cree, Ojibway and Salishan peoples. Finally, in Calgary, at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers where beavers were once hunted to near extinction, the full masked orchestra unites to perform the symphony live before a spontaneous audience in City Hall Plaza.

THE ICE CAP
The Ice Cap biome presents four works from Studio Orta’s Antarctica project.

'Antarctic Village – No Borders' (2007) is represented by two of the twenty-five textile sculptures installed across four locations in Antarctica in 2007. They symbolise a community formed from a multiplicity of cultures and identities, situated within a continent governed by principles of peace and international cooperation. The dome tents are stitched into a patchwork of clothing and glove extensions with world flags hand-printed with text excerpts proposing an amendment to Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

'Antarctica Drop Parachute' (2020) is inspired by parachute delivery systems used to distribute essential supplies to inaccessible regions of the world. Suspended from the webbing straps are bundles of symbolic and functional objects designed to meet basic physical and emotional needs of people in distress, such as food, water and love.

In the Lifeguard series, 'Lifeguard Aira' (2019) depicts a costumed-figure carrying a glove-covered stretcher bed, which is attached to a silk drop parachute. Hanging from the parachute harness is an array of functional and symbolic objects referencing the planet’s increasingly diminishing resources.

THE OCEAN
The four hand-embroidered works in the series 'Trajectories' (2022) are poetic representations of Earth’s constant state of flux. Embroidery and bead work are used to depict data sets sourced from scientific journals. Densely stitched French knots suggest accumulations of plastic particles, while running stitches trace the gyroscopic movement of currents that carry debris on arbitrary journeys across the oceans.

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The 2025 British Textile Biennial (2 October to 2 November 2025) incorporated 32 exhibitions across 19 venues in Lancashire, featuring the work of over 100 artists. Homo Mondialis was presented at the key biennial venue, Blackburn Cathedral Crypt, East Lancashire. Over 150,000 people visited the biennial, while more than 1,000 children, young people and students participated in its education programme.

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