Unravelling is a common process in textiles, where fabrics are taken apart to recover, repair or reuse materials. In revealing what lies beneath, the act also becomes a powerful metaphor for bringing to light intimate stories hidden within collective histories.

In this final edition of the Artefacts of… series, we ‘unravel’ a fibre deeply entwined with the history of The Mills. Through the lenses of science, industry, craft and design, voices from across the city offer glimpses into what is held within various forms of unravelled cotton: a sentiment for a disappearing craft, an anecdote from Hong Kong’s industrial era, among others. These stories, shaped as much by imagination as by experience, reveal how materials and memories can be reconsidered and recombined to generate new meanings.