Textiles

Textiles are a core case study through which the Center for Design and Material Culture pursues its mission. Textiles are objects of design, and subjects of material culture study. On the one hand, textiles are intimate and personal: we wear them on our bodies, we sleep under them, we use them to make our homes more private. On the other hand, they are also resonant of larger cultural traditions; technological development over time; and trade, or other forms of exchange, that can reach a global scale. The networks of fibers that are felted, woven, or knitted together into textiles are echoed in the networks of people that create and use textiles.  Textiles are artifacts of the connection between the personal scale of human experience and the broader realms of artistic, economic, and civic values; this connection is at the heart of the School of Human Ecology.