Textiles are intimate creations, worn on our bodies or otherwise integrated into daily life. They serve as functional and decorative items while also acting as dynamic archives of cultural history, memory, and identity. Highly skilled and labor-intensive processes are involved in their creation, from preparing fiber materials to weaving to ornamental techniques like embroidery.

Woven Narratives: Textiles as Living Archives unravels stories of textiles from different cultural contexts. The exhibition pulls from the permanent collection of the Stanford University Archaeology Collections, featuring anthropological and archaeological textiles and objects related to textile production from diverse communities in Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Thailand, Japan, and the Philippines. Textiles are archives of heritage and identity, technique and style, oppression and resistance, and relationships among people and between people and environments. Woven Narratives traces thematic threads that illustrate enduring and evolving textile traditions and practices.

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Woven Narratives: Textiles as Living Archives is the newest exhibition of the Stanford University Archaeology Collections (SUAC). The exhibit was curated by students in the Spring 2025 course “Introduction to Museum Practice.”

The exhibit is on view at the Stanford Archaeology Center starting Monday, June 2, 2025. Members of the Stanford community can view the exhibit using their Stanford ID card to access the building. Members of the public (those without Stanford ID cards) can schedule an appointment for access to the building for a self-guided tour Monday through Thursday between 9am and 5pm by emailing kott@stanford.edu.