Lisa King came to this project through grief and inheritance — specifically through the rich textile archive left by her late mother Farida, whose Indonesian heritage runs through every decision in the show. Batik is a slow craft, symbolic and process-led, and King has spent time in Indonesia working closely with artisan communities there, alongside colour specialists in the UK and experts in Southeast Asian textiles, to produce a body of work that treats the technique not as historical document but as living language. The result pushes the boundaries of pattern, colour and form traditionally associated with batik while remaining entirely honest about where it comes from. It is one of the more personally weighted things on this list, and all the more interesting for it.
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