Leeds, once a small Saxon settlement and cloth trading town expanded to eventually house the world’s largest woollen Mill:
Armley Mills. 

There are over 200 mill buildings in Leeds and the textile industry was the basis of the region’s economy. Extensive waterways and locomotive transport systems were built alongside the millsmaking Leeds the textile capital of the world.

Verge is an installation that celebrates and reflects on how the city’s modern landscape has been shaped around this significant history. Our canals, mills and mill villages are still in existence today fusing with the modern constructions, high rises and complexes where communities live, work and play.

The installation has been constructed out of synthetic fibre, juxtaposing the natural cottons and wool that would have originally been produced here. Using modern technology, location data has been collected for the mills and places of meaning to the Inkwell community: from homes, to parks, galleries and places that harbour childhood memories.

The finished piece has been contributed to and built by 30 Inkwell artists, using nearly 1.5km of twine mapping grid references for each location. Emerging from this process is an abstract linear landscape that illustrates the relationship between the city’s present form and the shadows of it’s past.