George Washington University (George Washington University Museum and Textile Museum)

The Textile Museum at George Washington University will fabricate and install an interactive Textile Learning Center within its new museum facility. The center will expand public knowledge and appreciation of the artistic merits and cultural importance of textiles by offering hands-on and technology-enhanced learning experiences. Interactive exhibitions will include a highly tactile experience for visitors to feel, manipulate, and design textiles; touchable examples of real textiles; feature videos that introduce the themes of each space; and a question-and-answer station where visitors can test their new knowledge. These experiences will allow audiences to identify textiles as human expressions of personal and cultural identity; understand the basic elements of textile structure, design, and materials; appreciate textiles as requiring significant resources, often with global impact; and recognize textiles as an art form. A summative evaluation will measure the exhibition's impact on visitors' understanding of textile production, present-day application of textiles, and textiles' association with art and global culture.