Limited to 20 participants. Reserve a seat by getting a ticket here.

From birth until death, our every moment is subtly accompanied by use of textiles. It’s not often that we give much thought to these textiles that, particularly in the form and shape of clothing, undeniably act as signifiers of such variables as class, occupation, and cultural affiliation. Who was responsible for their design and manufacture? On which historical models were they based? What can we glean from them in regards to the society in which they were created? What kind of value was assigned to them, either during their useful lives or in their afterlives in museum collections?

Ann Poulson is the Associate Curator of Collections at the Henry Art Gallery. Christian Alborz Oldham is one of the artists exhibiting in the MFA + MDes Thesis Exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery. Poulson has been invited by Oldham to join in a discussion of these concepts as illustrated by items they have selected together from the Henry Art Gallery’s Costume and Textiles collection.