A meeting of place, material and time
Photo courtesy of the artists
It has been such a pleasure to work on Are You Lost?, a collaboration by Kate O’Farrell and Rob St John, as part of the British Textile Biennial’s 2025 programme. The piece brings together film, soundscape and textiles, rooted in the landscapes and communities of the Forest of Bowland, exploring its land-access stories, environmental justice questions, and personal connections to place.
Installation at Cruck Barn, Pendle Heritage Centre
Are You Lost? is part of the national programme, Nature Calling, commissioned by the Forest of Bowland National Landscape and produced by Lancaster Arts.
The work was on loan to British Textile Biennial from Peter Scott Gallery for an all too brief weekend. Working on a short timeframe but still doing the work justice was a creative priority.
Two-screen AV installation & lighting design
One of the technical and creative pleasures of the project was realising the two-screen audio-visual installation, projected onto an improvised projection screen which made use of material from the exhibition and an existing frame structure from the historic barn.
Photo courtesy of British Textile Biennial
We carefully designed the positioning and lighting of the textiles to work in the same space as the video, so that the subtle textures, felted surfaces and materials drawn from the land would reveal their depth under soft directional light, echoing the quiet, meditative quality of the work. The combination of AV, textiles and lighting created an immersive environment where landscape, material and memory conversed.
Lighting the textile works in the medieval Cruck Barn was particularly rewarding: the timber trusses, the scale of the space and the barn’s rural architecture provided a beautiful counterpoint to the contemporary installation.
Photo courtesy of Pendle Heritage Centre
Reflections
Working on Are You Lost? in this context was more than installing artworks, it felt like weaving together threads of landscape, material and heritage. The Pendle Heritage Centre site, with its historic architecture, geographical context and textile history, was an ideal host. It has been an absolute pleasure to see the pieces light up in the barn, in harmony with the video projections and soundscape, and the whole space becoming an environment where visitors can look, listen, and reflect.