Preserving and Providing Access to Non-Western Textiles

FAIN: PG-50800-10

University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN 55455-2009)
Lin Nelson-Mayson (Project Director: May 2009 to October 2011)

Funding supports the purchase of preservation materials to rehouse an international collection of textiles. The collection contains hand-woven, hand-printed or dyed, and hand-embroidered items from Africa, the Americas, and Asia and includes shawls from India, textiles from 16 different African countries, Navajo rugs and blankets, and reverse appliqué molas (blouses or blouse panels) from Panama and Guatemala. These items are used in scholarly research and in educational and public programming to explore the history and culture of these regions and the effects of globalization and new technologies on traditional clothmaking techniques and materials.

The Goldstein Museum of Design (GMD,) part of the College of Design (CDes) at the University of Minnesota, requests $6,000 to purchase archival materials for re-housing a historically and culturally significant group of 1,000 textiles from around the world. Completion of this project would relieve object crowding and provide safer and easier access to this core group of textiles. The impacts of this dramatic storage upgrade would include long-term preservation of the textiles and much-enhanced accessibility for scholarship, object documentation, and exhibition and for use in university classes and outreach programs.