Housed in the former 16th-century convent of Santo Domingo church, now the Regional Museum of Oaxaca, Mexico, is an important collection of textiles representing the area’s indigenous cultures. The collection includes a wealth of exquisitely made traditional weavings, many that are now considered rare. The Unbroken Thread: Conserving the Textile Traditions of Oaxaca details a joint project of the Getty Conservation Institute and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) of Mexico to conserve the collection and to document current use of textile traditions in daily life and ceremony.

The book contains 145 color photographs of the valuable textiles in the collection, as well as images of local weavers and project participants at work. Subjects include anthropological research, ancient and present-day weaving techniques, analyses of natural dyestuffs, and discussions of the ethical and practical considerations involved in working in Latin America to conserve the materials and practices of living cultures.

• Foreword, Eduardo López Calzada
• Preface, Miguel Angel Corzo
• Project Participants
• Conservation and Cultural Identity, Kathryn Klein
• Preventative Textile Conservation in Latin America, Kathryn Klein
• Practicing Textile Conservation in Oaxaca, Sharon K. Shore
• The Analysis of Dyestuffs on Historical Textiles from Mexico, Arie Wallert
• Threads of Diversity: Oaxacan Textiles in Context, Alejandro de Avila B.
• Afterword, Kathryn Klein
• About the Authors
• Map of Oaxaca

Kathryn Klein is a specialist in Latin American art history and the conservation of anthropological materials and living cultural traditions.

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