Curating a community: How IQM is bringing history and culture to life through quiltmaking

By Noah Johnson

Every day, Marin Hanson, Ph.D., works to bring history and culture to life at the International Quilt Museum.

Hanson is the museum’s curator of international collections. Over the course of her two decades of experience at the International Quilt Museum (IQM), she has played a critical role in growing the museum’s non-Western quilt collection.

“I am constantly corresponding with curators, dealers and collectors to find examples that we can add to our collection to fully  tell the story of quilts as robustly as possible,” she said. “It really is a global story.”

Hanson’s love for quilts began as an admiration for its beauty as an art form. She remembered being transfixed by the work of Nancy Crow, an American artist specializing in quiltmaking.

Today, Hanson is using the beauty of this medium to showcase global history and culture through an ever-expanding collection of quilts and exhibits. In 2025, IQM hosted over 20,000 visitors from across the world and expanded its collection of quilts to over 9,300 quilts.

Hanson worked directly on several of the museum’s 15 exhibitions held over the year. Her exhibitions highlighted the history and evolution of quiltmaking across the globe, ranging from Turkey to China.

For her, these exhibitions are meant to tell the story of a culture. Hanson said one of the most gratifying moments in her work is to see visitors walk away from their visit feeling connected to the quilts they encountered.

Over Hanson’s 21-year career at IQM, she has seen that connection between the museum and its guests continue to thrive. That commitment is also seen through increased  financial support to the International Quilt Museum’s Annual Support Fund.

Donations to this fund  enable  IQM to continue welcoming visitors each year, provide support and programming to local schools and host lectures and workshops for all ages.

“I’m grateful and in awe of our donors because they remain committed to us and clearly want us to succeed, which really gives me so much motivation,” Hanson said.

Whether it’s through gifts to the IQM Annual Support Fund or simply walking through the museum’s doors to experience the largest publicly held quilt collection in the world firsthand, Hanson said she continues to be grateful to those who are responsible for assisting IQM to thrive.

“I feel lucky to have been able to do this for so long,” she said. “I’m able to share this with our visitors, and it makes me feel like my time at IQM has meant something and it really has made a difference.”