Textiles Tell Stories: Exploring the African Studies Library Collection

A Special Collections Exhibition by the Boston University Libraries 
In Support of Boston University Diversity & Inclusion’s 2024–25 Learn More Theme: Indigenous Identities and Experience

On display through 2025 | Gotlieb Gallery | Mugar Memorial Library

Textiles are some of the building blocks of everyday life. Textiles are materials made by humans or machines linking fibers together into a new form. Your T-shirt, your backpack, the carpet underneath your feet: All are examples of textiles.

But textiles are so much more than just material—and can hold radically different meanings when seen in different cultural contexts. Textiles have historically and continue to play an important role for those living in Africa and its diasporas. Textiles are primary sources that speak across decades as to how people felt about politicians, what events were celebrated (or resisted), and which ideas or new technologies were most valued. Many offer ways of understanding how people saw the world at an exact moment in time.

Curated by our African Studies librarians and faculty and scholars of BU’s History of Art & Architecture department, this exhibition of the African Textiles Collection held at the BU Libraries innovations from the African continent and provides an overview of how symbolic, political, and ceremonial textiles have been used in Africa and how they continue to have significance today.

Through the more than 40 pieces of textiles on display, this exhibition invites visitors to make their own connections.

Textiles tell stories. What stories will you uncover? 

A complementary community exhibit, Textiles Tell OUR Stories, 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.

Visit the Gotlieb Gallery on the first floor of Mugar Memorial Library, during regular library hours. View our visitor policy non-BU community members and request to visit.

News & Events

Textiles Tell Stories Highlights BU Libraries African Textiles Collection (by Sujena Soumyanath, BU Today, April 11, 2025)

On a recent Wednesday evening, Mugar Memorial Library looked a little different. From the back of the library, beyond the rows of students silently studying, emanated the sound of African music and the aroma of plantains and jollof rice. Colorful textiles lined the walls, and the space was humming with BU community members. Continue reading.

 

BU Today Close Up: Behind the Curtain (March 17, 2025)

While students study, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center exhibits manager Chris Gately sets up the upcoming exhibition of African textiles, Textiles Tells Stories: Exploring the African Studies Library Collection, at Mugar Memorial Library. Read more.  Photo by Cydney Scott

 

About the Collection

Preserving textiles is a way to preserve histories.

Prior to 2015, Boston University’s African Studies Library (ASL) was in possession of a single, very striking kanga from Tanzania, belonging to its late Head Librarian, Gretchen Walsh.

In summer of 2016, Professor Emeritus John Hutchison offered the library a collection of textiles from West Africa (mostly Niger and Mali) along with items from his personal library. The librarians readily accepted them, aware of the work undertaken by Emilie Songolo at University of Wisconsin-Madison to spearhead the development of an African Commemorative Textiles collection and justify its place in a research library.

The collection continued to grow, largely through donations and by word of mouth. In 2020, Jo Sullivan donated a collection of 30 commemorative cloths, expanding the collection’s geographic range and contributing some truly valuable pieces, many of which are on display in this exhibition. The Holly Larner Collection at the African Studies Library also supplemented this collection with 31 samples of Vlisco Java Prints from the 1970s originating in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which was called Zaire at the time. Today the African Textiles Collection encompasses some 218 cloths from, or acquired in, no less than 18 countries. Approximately 25% of these are true commemorative cloths, or factory-made printed textiles created and used to celebrate specific events, people, or historical occasions.

The textiles have become a key component of book exhibitions, class visits, and tours to the library. While many libraries limit their collections to print and digital materials, our library takes an innovative approach by collecting these textiles. Though unexpected in a library setting, these objects hold vital histories and have become a collection of interest in their own right, and are featured regularly in the courses ID116 (Africa Today) and AA/AH 114 (Kongo to Cuba)  as a research archive by students and scholars. To that end, every textile on view in this exhibition was shaped by—and shaped—particular historical moments.

To learn more, and to see further examples, visit the African Studies Library on the 6th floor of Mugar Memorial Library or contact our staff to arrange a visit.

Acknowledgments

Exhibition Curatorial Team 

Cynthia Becker – Chair & Professor of History of Art & Architecture Department, College of Arts and Science 

Oriane Sophia DuBois – PhD Student; African Art 

Rachel Dwyer – Assistant Head, African Studies Library, Boston University Libraries 

Colleen Foran – PhD Candidate; African Art 

Beth Restrick – Head, African Studies Library, Boston University Libraries 

BU Libraries Exhibition Staff

Christopher Gately – Exhibits Manager

Nkechi Abraham – Student Assistant

Basil Adamah – Student Assistant

Gabe Adugna – Africana Librarian

Jack Campbell – Facilities Manager

Eleni Castro – Director, Digital Ventures

Ford Curran – Outreach Archivist

Hamed Diakite – Student Assistant

Shayla Fitzgerald – Administrative Coordinator

Riley Fitzpatrick – Student Assistant

Amanda Fowler – Digital Collections Librarian

Victoria Gorman – Student Assistant

Dawn Gross – Associate University Librarian for Planning and Operations 

Kendall House – Student Assistant

Dominik Johnson – User Services Manager

Johanna Kaiser – Communications Manager

Jennifer King – Associate University Librarian for Special Collections 

Yeabsera Mekebeb – Student Assistant

Nicole McCaffrey – Director of Finance and Business Services

Mark Newton – University Librarian

Michelle Niebur – Head of Access Services and Library Experience

Bright Nogoh – Student Assistant

Tochi Udeh – Student Assistant

Mustard Uzu – Student Assistant

Sami Wright – Digital Imaging Specialist 

BU Campus Partners

African Studies Center

Arts and Sciences, History of Art and Architecture
Cynthia Becker – Chair

Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Learn More Series,
Mary Lai Rose – Assistant Director of Programs, BU Diversity & Inclusion

Student Label Writers from CAS AH 114 (Kongo to Cuba) 

Lauren Boysa, Sofia Ford, Chakaiya Harrison, Allison Huang, Abby Hummert, Elena Jordan, Corinne Keaney, Maya Nesbit, Lisa Pacheco-Garces, Violet Paiva, Ana C. Rivera, Hector Rivera, Florence Sarni, Sara Sierra-Garcia, Oluwaseun Soyannwo, Marisa De La Villa, Miranda Wabl, Jocelyn White, Nyandeng Yak, Rex York  

Textiles On Loan From 

African Studies Center at Boston University,Cynthia Becker, Celeste Chaguala, Christa Clarke, Rachel Dwyer, J.P. Hutchison, Lesya Kuzyk, Philip Peek, Beth Restrick, Rhoda Restrick, Jo Sullivan, Jeff Turner, Maria Tavares, & Gretchen Walsh 

Special thanks to our partners at R.H.C. General Contracting & Millwork and Fenway Group