Entwined Matters - London
Date: July 2025 Location: London, UK Function: Rope, shop installation Status: Completed Material: Denim offcuts Collaborator (Material provider): Blackhorse Lane Ateliers Exhibition Organiser in Singapore: SUPERMAMA Photo: PAN- PROJECTS
Entwined Matters - London is a rope made from the denim offcuts of Blackhorse Lane Ateliers, a maker producing jeans entirely in London. First shown at EMERGE 2025 at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, the rope returned to London to be installed in the maker’s shop at Coal Drops Yard. The work recognises the craft and labour embedded in small-scale local manufacturing by reassembling its offcuts into a new architectural artefact. Each strand carries traces of cutting, handling and stitching, gathering several stages of production into one continuous line. The project continues Entwined Matters, first developed in Estonia. Where the first edition worked with industrial remnants in Valga, the London edition brings the studio’s research on by-products closer to home, working with a maker in its own city and with materials sourced directly from its surrounding urban environment.
Entwined Matters - London forms part of PAN- PROJECTS’ ongoing research into Architecture of By-products, which looks at how local by-products can reveal the story of production, labour and place behind them. Where the first edition of Entwined Matters worked with industrial remnants in Valga, Estonia, the London edition turns to the studio’s own city and to a local maker. Blackhorse Lane Ateliers makes high-quality jeans entirely in London. During production, cutting the denim leaves narrow strips behind: robust, full of character, and usually never seen by customers. The studio collected these offcuts from the workshop and twisted them together into one continuous rope, binding separate remnants into a single object with strong presence. The rope works as a physical record of accumulated local labour. Each strand carries traces of cutting, handling and stitching, gathering several stages of production into one line. Rather than hiding its origins, the rope makes the irregularity, colour variation and density of the denim visible, so that the process of making remains legible. The rope was first presented at EMERGE 2025 at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, organised by SUPERMAMA. Shown abroad, detached from its original site, it represented local London manufacturing while still carrying the story of its material. It then returned to London and was installed in Blackhorse Lane Ateliers’ shop at Coal Drops Yard as part of the retail interior, celebrating the local crafts of London. This return was part of the project rather than an afterthought. Moving from exhibition to shop, the rope entered an everyday setting close to its source, where customers encounter the by-product of the very jeans they are buying. In the shop, the rope tells the story of local craft that the finished jeans alone cannot show. The work exists in several states at once: artefact, exhibition piece and part of a working shop interior. Entwined Matters - London builds directly on the Estonian edition, which explored collective making through entangled industrial remnants. Together, the two projects form a series that examines how materials circulate, gather meaning and celebrate the story of the local crafts.
