The Making, Dyeing and Materialising Cottonopolis Project brought the “Cottonopolis Collective” (a multidisciplinary network of researchers at the University of Manchester) into collaboration with textiles and arts-based practitioners. In the project we trialled novel artistic techniques to evaluate and communicate the qualities of soils, plants and water impacted by cotton science and industry in Manchester and beyond.

The team visited rivers around Greater Manchester that had been identified as still carrying pollutants from the city’s cotton industry. Water samples and riverbank plants, fungi and materials were then turned into dyes and inks that were used in artistic experiments at a series of workshops.

The photographs and short film below were produced during the project’s pilot phase, which ran through autumn 2022. The next phase of the work will take place over summer 2023.