Permanent Collection Gallery

Exhibition Overview

Throughout the world, textile making is in a continual process of adaptation and transformation. Curious and resourceful creatures that we are, we make a habit of borrowing each other's best ideas for making ourselves safer, more beautiful, and more comfortable. Religious and secular traditions travel from place to place, changing and transforming in response to new conditions, and textile practices travel and change with them.

In this selection of textiles from the museum's permanent collection, you'll see a variety of traditions and innovations in the world of textiles. You are invited to explore and discover as the textiles reveal their lives and the lives of their creators. The focus of the gallery will shift periodically to different areas of the world, and some of the textiles will be replaced with related examples.