Textiles Tell OUR Stories: Celebrating the BU Community

On display until May 20, 2025 | Richards-Frost Room | Mugar Memorial Library

Textiles Tell OUR Stories: Celebrating the BU Community displays garments and cloths contributed by BU students, faculty, and staff and describes in their own words the significance that these garments hold for them. This community exhibition complements the BU Libraries Special Collections exhibition Textiles Tell Stories: Exploring the African Studies Library Collection

About the Exhibition

The textiles we wear communicate who we are. Our clothing is an outward expression of identity and belonging. To the casual observer, clothes may simply be fashion. But for the wearer and their community, they tell stories—stories of family connection, of culture, of confidence, of pride and belonging. Here, our Boston University community shares the stories of textiles in their lives.

Most of the panels of cloth  displayed in Textiles Tell Stories: Exploring the African Studies Library Collection are textiles in their most basic form: rectangular pieces of cloth that you might purchase from a shop or acquire from a textile mill. However it is through the transformation of these textiles to clothing that their purpose and meaning are revealed. This community exhibition showcases such garments on loan from our own students and staff and recognizes, in their own words, the stories and the significance ascribed to them.

The individuals represented in this room are part of a greater legacy. For decades, BU has been the academic home of countless students and scholars either from Africa or deeply connected to it. These include African students who found their place here, such as Nigerian playwright Ola Rotimi (BFA ‘64), and African American students, such as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS ‘55, Hon. ‘59), whose paths led them to the continent in solidarity and advocacy. BU staff and faculty, such as Howard Thurman, Adelaide Cromwell, and President Harold Case, also strengthened the University’s connections to the continent through travel and education.

Today, the African Studies Center, African American & Black Diaspora program and no less than 12 African student groups continue to advance this connection and build community among BU’s significant and wonderfully diverse population of students, faculty, and staff from across Africa and beyond.

These textiles tell their stories.

These textiles tell OUR stories.

Exhibition Contributors

Basil Adamah ​

Nneka Agba

Cynthia Becker

Rebecca Fekru ​

Victoria Gorman ​

Naveen Inim ​

Chiharu Kamimura​

Lesya Kuzyk ​

Bright Nogoh

Seth Kwabena (Cobey) Ofori ​

Addi Ouadderrou ​

Amy Luecht

Jim Racette ​

Beth Restrick ​

Avenie Seynedhee ​

Mustard Uzu ​

Elsa Wiehe (on behalf of Yara Munif & Zoya Munif)