Afterlives: Material Stories from the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection

Afterlives explores the many lives of objects and what happens to textiles after they enter the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection. From a quilt made out of carefully saved 19th-century American cigar silks to an robe from Turkmenistan, material things carry traces of their journey through past, present, and future in our Collection. Both poetic and practical, the exhibition explores what these treasures can teach us if we pay attention to their stories.