It’s the start of a new chapter for the School of Human Ecology’s Center for Design and Material Culture as it introduces a new name and celebrates the expanded learning opportunities made possible by a family’s legacy gift.
The center’s new name is Nancy M. Bruce Center for Design and Material Culture in honor of the late Nancy (Meng) Bruce ’54, an alumna of the School of Human Ecology and founding member of its Board of Visitors. In 1990, Bruce’s generosity helped establish the design gallery that serves as one of two creative showcases for the center. This fall, two quilt exhibitions will pay tribute to her passion for antique quilt collecting.
“Thanks to the thoughtful generosity of Nancy and Robert Bruce, the center is poised to expand its reach even further, advancing the study of material culture, design and the human experience,” says Soyeon Shim, the Elizabeth Holloway Schar Dean of the School of Human Ecology. “Bolstered by philanthropic support, the center can be a leading destination for learning and discovery and ensure that the material world continues to serve as a lens for inquiry and innovation, not only for our campus but for scholars across the country and the globe.”
An international leader in design and material culture studies
The center has played a vital role in establishing the University of Wisconsin–Madison as an international leader in research and teaching on design and material culture. Its faculty and staff regularly partner with international scholars who are drawn to the center’s Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, which includes nearly 14,000 textile treasures from around the world, making it one of the largest university-held collections of its kind.
“As an academic research center located in the beautiful Nancy Nicholas Hall, we are fortunate to have the opportunity to curate exhibitions that allow us to share our research through two gorgeous galleries,” says Sarah Anne Carter, associate professor of Design Studies and the center’s executive director, a role made possible through generous support from the Chipstone Foundation. “We offer other research pathways as well, all of which are highly collaborative with scholars across academic disciplines.”
Cultural historian Sophie Pitman joined the center in 2022 as the research director for the textile collection and the Pleasant Rowland Textile Specialist, further enhancing the center’s intellectual clout.
The center hosts a number of free, public exhibitions each year, exploring an array of topics, from scientific research glass to Renaissance textile-making practices to expressions of politics in the home. In addition, the center regularly hosts gallery tours, public lectures and panel discussions, making workshops and other special events.
“At Human Ecology, we’re all about understanding and enhancing the human experience — at the individual, family, community and societal levels — and design plays a critical role in shaping this progress,” says Shim, who also holds the Ted Kellner Bascom Professorship in Consumer Science. “By examining the intersections between the material world and design innovation, as both scholarly and creative endeavors, we can harness the power of imagination in asking ‘what if’ and devising solutions to society’s grand challenges.”
Celebrating with a year of quilts
This fall, two quilt-themed exhibitions will provide another opportunity to reflect on Bruce’s legacy. Years ago, Bruce donated seven antique quilts to the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection — some of the gems of her world-class collection.
“Nancy recognized that donating these quilts would give them a new life and would allow them to serve student researchers and really be cared for in perpetuity as objects of deep cultural importance,” Carter says. “And so, we’re celebrating this gift with a year of quilts. It feels like an authentic and exciting way to say thank you and also lean into the purpose of that initial gift, which is to celebrate these objects and to think about what they make possible.”
Find Your Quilt will run from Oct. 8, 2025, through March 1, 2026, in the Ruth Davis Design Gallery, while the Lynn Mecklenburg Textile Gallery will feature Parallel Lines: Quilts and the American Landscape from Sept. 3, 2025, through May 10, 2026. The quilt exhibitions opening in Fall 2025 are curated by Sophie Pitman and Marina Moskowitz, the Lynn and Gary Mecklenburg Chair in Textiles, Material Culture & Design.
The opening reception for both fall exhibitions is set for Oct. 16, 2025, and other programming will include a Quilt Exhibitions Bus Tour on Oct. 18, 2025, and a Quilt Documentation Day on Nov. 15, 2025, in partnership with the Wisconsin Quilt and Fiber Arts Museum, along with other quilting-inspired events.
In the meantime, Carter looks forward to bringing more students and scholars into the center’s work and experiences.
“We’re raising the level of conversation around the idea that the material world has intellectual content that should be studied and understood,” Carter says. “And we can help students build skills to do that — to actually make sense of the world that we live in beyond texts or numbers or charts, and to understand in an increasingly digital world that material things matter.”
