Featuring stunning examples from the UC Davis Design Collection, this exhibition of global ethnographic and contemporary textile design coincides with the book Textiles: The Art of Mankind by Mary Schoeser, published by Thames and Hudson in December 2012.Over 200 objects from the design collection are illustrated in the book, underscoring the significance and importance of the collection as a teaching and research resource.From identity to ingenuity, societies to environment, the viewer will see how textiles communicate through specific forms, structures and materials created and appreciated by people around the world.

Schoeser is a UC Davis alumna (Applied Behavioural Sciences: Design, 1972), a leading authority in the field of textiles, and Honorary President of the UK Textile Society. Now resident in England, she began her acquaintance with the UK as a participant in the University’s Education Abroad Program, at the University of Edinburgh. She has since returned to the Davis campus because the library, as she comments, ‘serves textile interests exceptionally well, covering as it does everything from raw materials, technology and polymer chemistry, to ethnography, anthropology and design. There is no library with open stacks that can equal it in Europe.’ She adds, ‘over a decade ago I began to visit the Design Collection as well, and was so impressed with the quality and diversity of its holdings that I wanted to showcase it in a publication.’

Schoeser will be available to sign copies of the book and giving a lecture at the opening event, sponsored by the Surface Design Association.