The MSU Museum opened a new exhibit about the Quilts of Southwest China on Sept. 27 and it will be open until April 30.

The exhibit explores the culture of Southwest China through quilts and other textiles that date back to the 1940s up until the late 20th century.

Marsha MacDowell, a professor in the Department of Art, Art History, And Design and the curator of the exhibit, gave insight on the five-year process it took to execute this exhibit.

“This exhibit grew out of discussions between members of the American Folklore Society and the Chinese Folklore Society, to look at ways we could build partnerships and collaborations,” MacDowell said.

The MSU Museum already has a wide range of quilts from many different cultures around the world.

“We hope that (people) will be surprised that it’s not just an American quilt tradition but there are multiple traditions of this kind of textile making around the world,” MacDowell said.

The exhibit will be a learning experience for both the viewers of the exhibit and the curators of the event due to the amount of research that has been done on the quilts.

“One interesting thing that I learned was that recently, people that are trying to adopt a kid from China have an online community where they can all get together and send each other pieces of the quilt, and then they will make one big quilt to give to their kid when they come to them,” Lyman Briggs sophomore Jane Sirigiri said.

Each of the quilts are different, but in comparison to some there are a few that share similar design patterns that may have came from the same ethnic groups.

The MSU Museum website describes the Quilts of Southwest China exhibit as “A bi-national consortium of American and Chinese museums, led by the MSU museum and the Yunnan Nationalities Museum.”

Mary Worrall, a curator of cultural heritage at the MSU Museum was excited about the turn out of the exhibit.

“I think it’s been a really great turn out, there’s a really great representation of the community here today,” Worrall said.