outreach – Page 2 – AIC Blog Archives: Conservators Converse

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Outreach to Allies Session, May 9, Collection Care Network Brainstorming Session: Table 8 – Natural History Collections

The last presentation of the Outreach to Allies Session at the AIC Annual Meeting 2012 was an interactive session organized by the Collection Care Network. The leadership team of the network designed it as a way to identify priorities and projects for the network. Imagine nine groups of 7 to 9 people sitting around tables discussing the content of a nine different short videos. Each video presented a collection care challenge or question. The discussion aimed to suggest projects the Collection Care Network could develop that would provide tools to overcome the challenge or answer the question. Now imagine people engaged in conversation. So engaged they didn’t get up for food when asked to do so! So engaged they had to be asked a second time!! Now you have a very small idea of what the session was like. This particular post gives you more details about the discussion at Table 8. Look for the other 8 posts if you would like to review all the discussions.

Table eight: I was particularly pleased to be able to moderate the discussion at table eight as natural history collections have been a focus of my conservation career. While the materials that make up these collections are familiar to all conservators, the approach to their care and management varies from that for art, humanities, and technology collections. Archaeological collections are the only ones that rival those in natural sciences in terms of size. Holdings in a mid-sized natural history museum often number in the millions, if not tens of millions of specimens, plus their associated documentation, ranging from books and manuscripts to all types of photographic formats and digital media.

The video: The video presenter was Dr. Christopher Norris, Senior Collections Manager for Vertebrate Paleontology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. Chris is also the President of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC). In his presentation, Chris noted that for natural history curators and collection managers, the biggest challenge is the size of the collections. “We have so many specimens, so many objects to deal with, that it’s very hard for us to make decisions about conserving those objects on the basis of individual object-based treatments; we have to focus in on preventive conservation. This, I think, is a very good area where SPNHC can work with the Collections Care Network at AIC to come up with some really creative solutions to our problems.” He suggested that this could be a two-way process in which SPNHC members, who have a great deal of experience in working with large collections, could tap into the conservation expertise of AIC and those in AIC that have had more experience in object-based treatments can begin to learn about and understand some of the conservation challenges that we face in natural history collections. He closed the video by commenting that he viewed this as a great opportunity for the two groups to work together and that SPNHC looks forward to working with the Collection Care Network.

The discussion: The discussion around table eight started with the ways all the recognized agents of deterioration impact natural history collections and how the impacts can vary among these collections. A number of questions were asked about the overall goals for collaboration—solutions to specific problems or simply greater understanding between the groups. This led to brainstorming about available resources and mechanisms to deliver these to a relatively new audience.

The ideas for Collection Care Network projects:

Given the range of materials in these collections, all expertise has applications. Would conservators answer questions in an open forum? The answer was decided positive, even though it was recognized that there were limits to the kind of information that can be shared effectively in this manner. A forum could foster a discussion model for information exchange.
Would be good to compile a list of resources that are currently available. There are many useful sites and freely available publications, but not all can be found easily. Possible topics include funding opportunities and risk assessment methodologies.
Use websites to help disseminate information. The planned AIC Storage of Technology, Arts, Science, and Humanities (STASH) project, which is based on a book published by SPNHC, will be a web-based resource with broad applicability and will involve a variety of organizations.
Might be able to use the Wiki format as a way to link to other sites and other information resources. Could post case studies or link to case studies, using a formats employed by other organizations (e.g., the Getty Conservation Institute), although it requires a great deal of work to create and maintain this type of site. AIC is a good group to tackle this and already has experience in creating Wikis.
In engaging other organizations, appreciate their standards and the ways they approach and use their collections. People enjoy talking about their collections and this can be an opening for dialog.
Conduct surveys to find out what people in various fields want/need to know.
View this as an opportunity to promote networking among mid-career professionals, pre-program interns, and museum studies students.
Create opportunities for conservators, collections managers, and curators to meet to exchange ideas. This might be done through joint meetings with representatives from other organizations, or possibly have special one-day joint sessions affiliated with annual meetings of both AIC and other organizations. Could begin with a half-day session with representatives from various groups as part of an upcoming AIC meeting. AIC could follow-up with sessions at the meetings of other organizations.
Highlight the Collection Care Network whenever AIC has a booth at another organization’s meetings.
Some of the richest and most useful sessions now held at AIC meetings are those in which an array of different perspectives are presented, including perspectives from outside conservation. We could use this format to encourage dialog across numerous fields. This would aid in introducing all of us to each other, bringing a range of organizations to the attention of the natural history field and simultaneously allowing conservator, mountmakers, registrars, etc. to share expertise among themselves as well as among colleagues in natural science disciplines.

The contributors: Moderator – Catharine Hawks; Note Taker – Ellen Promise; Table participants – Catherine Badot-Costello, Lisa Goldberg, Leslie Goldman, Kazuko Hioki, Andrea Knowlton, Katie Mullen, Betty Seifert, Bill Wei, Emily Williams.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Outreach to Allies Session, May 9, Collection Care Network Brainstorming Session: Table 7 – an architect’s view

The last presentation of the Outreach to Allies Session at the AIC Annual Meeting 2012 was an interactive session organized by the Collection Care Network. The leadership team of the network designed it as a way to identify priorities and projects for the network. Imagine nine groups of 7 to 9 people sitting around tables discussing the content of a nine different short videos. Each video presented a collection care challenge or question. The discussion aimed to suggest projects the Collection Care Network could develop that would provide tools to overcome the challenge or answer the question. Now imagine people engaged in conversation. So engaged they didn’t get up for food when asked to do so! So engaged they had to be asked a second time!! Now you have a very small idea of what the session was like. This particular post gives you more details about the discussion at Table 7. Look for the other 8 posts if you would like to review all the discussions.

Table Seven: Building design is a topic near and dear to my heart as I am constantly reminded of its impact on collections care. Understanding the environment in which one’s collection is housed is critical to preventive conservation, and a well designed and built/remodeled structure can make all the difference. Most conservators and collections care professionals participate infrequently in building projects, so sharing information and experiences is key to successful outcomes. Until we demonstrate the value of collections care input in the planning process, specialists in this field will continue to be consulted too little and too late.

The video: The video presenter was Samuel Anderson, an architect based in New York City. Sam is the principal of Samuel Anderson Architects, and includes conservation facilities, museums, and collections storage amongst his specialties.

In his video, he requests collections care information that has been vetted by conservators, including recommended literature. Sam seeks positive, optimistic language to communicate the importance of collections care considerations in building design to “decision makers”.

The discussion: We discussed that it is expensive and really beyond our means to establish standards, but that we can participate in the mechanisms that are already in place for this activity. We need to make collections care specialists aware of standards and how they might apply to their situation. Additionally, gathering and sharing information that is already out there and making it pertinent in terms of how one applies it to their particular situation would be a big step in the right direction. We recognize that “boiler plate” information is desired, so sharing something about the nuances of our expertise is critical for proper decision making.

Information if this sort needs to be flexible and affordable (we liked what Sam said about flexibility). Small and micro-small institutions need recommendations that they can implement. For example, basic tenets of storage encourage consideration of people in the space (or not), disaster recovery, and pest prevention.

We discussed what resources would be the most useful for the one-pager on collections care? These ranged from SPNCH guides to ASHRAE chapters, which would be hard to combine and distill to one page.

Lots of ideas of about information sharing mechanisms came up: there is already a LinkdIn group for collections care, collaborative knowledge is created via QUORA. Folks asked: Do we want to have architects and engineers come and talk to us? Building projects are more of a one-off experience for most conservators, and the necessary expertise comes from experience.

The ideas for Collection Care Network projects (in no particular order):

Ally with Smithsonian conference on cultural property protection as this annual meeting deals with risk assessment and risk management.
Ally with museum and other collections facilities’ engineers and mechanical specialists
Communicate info via wiki, website, workshop – to share resources.
Share information with students and others who want to work with collections – it would help to get this info in the hands of broadly educated people who participate in building design.
Assess and comment on existing standards and guidelines such as NFPA, ASHRAE, etc.
Teach and learn technical language of various professions (including ours)
Perhaps develop one-page info sheets on different topics – storage basics, exhibition galleries, lighting, environmental control.

The contributors: Moderator – Patty Silence; Note Taker -Jennifer Hain-Teper ; Table participants – Whitney Baker, Stephanie Gowler, Rick Kerschner, Richard McCoy, Susan Russick

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Outreach to Allies Session, May 9, Collection Care Network Brainstorming Session: Table 9 – Collections Managers and Other Collections Staff

The last presentation of the Outreach to Allies Session at the AIC Annual Meeting 2012 was an interactive session organized by the Collection Care Network. The leadership team of the network designed it as a way to identify priorities and projects for the network. Imagine nine groups of 7 to 9 people sitting around tables discussing the content of a nine different short videos. Each video presented a collection care challenge or question. The discussion aimed to suggest project the Collection Care Network could develop that would provide tools to overcome the challenge or answer the question. Now imagine people engaged in conversation. So engaged they didn’t get up for food when asked to do so! So engaged the had to be asked a second time!! Now you have a very small idea of what the session was like. This particular post gives you more details about the discussion at Table 9. Look for the other 8 posts if you would like to review all the discussions.

Table Nine: Collections Managers are not bountifully represented at AIC – we are in the minority. However, in my role as Collections Manager for the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, my responsibility is to put conservation theory into practice. I work closely with our departmental conservators. The Collection Care Network encourages all staff vested in collection care to get involved, so it was important that one of our discussion groups talked about working with allied collections professionals.

The video: The video presenter was Derya Golpinar, Assistant Registrar for Collections at the Rubin Museum in New York. In the video, Derya described her daily responsibilities, including maintaining proper environment, security, identifying potential condition issues with the collections, and identifying appropriate conservators and other experts to consult on overall preservation issues impacting the collections. It is a role that Derya described as liaising with all departments of the museum to create a coordinated preservation effort.

In her former position as Collections Manager at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, many of Derya’s responsibilities were the same, even though her title was different. This underlines the occasional lack of clarity of roles among collections staff. From this discussion of her role, the following questions were posed to meeting attendees:

Collections Managers and Registrars apply much of the conservation ideals the field establishes. How can we support them as a professional in reaching these goals?
How can titles affect professional standing for this group? Is there a benefit to having more standardized titles?
In some cases conservators are the employers of collections managers, and in others, collections managers are the employers of conservators. What are the skill sets that we share? What information do museums need from us when establishing preservation staff roles?
Much of what collections managers do is implement the ideals of preventive conservation, but they themselves do not have a professional organization, or clear pathways to entry level or mid-career training. What programs do you feel to be the best? What training would you identify for a collection manager at mid-career? In what areas should conservators and collection managers train together?
How do we increase visibility, and therefore better support collection care?

The discussion: The topic – discussing collection staff – came as a surprise to Table 9’s participants. Interestingly, most of the participants at Table 9 were not institution-based conservators, but instead worked in private practice. They also usually were contracted to perform treatments, rather than examine and establish collection care policy and procedures. It was evident that traditional conservation training often does not address how conservators will work with others in preserving collections – one participant noted that she didn’t learn about collection managers until she was interning with a paper conservator. Another point made by Table 9 participants was that they often want to address collection care policy that may have led to damage they are contracted to repair, but that museums may not be receptive to this approach.

The ideas for Collection Care Network projects:

Mid-career training for collection staff is often difficult to identify. Available training has often targeted conservators or is more entry level in nature. Needed training that would be useful to both conservators and collection mangers included mentorship opportunities, self-assessment, benchmarking, and fundraising.
Create tools to assist the private practice conservator address collection care when creating a contract with an institution.
All collection activities and staff need more visibility to generate support for collection care. Some ideas included public interaction when some collection care activities are taking place and web features that highlight behind the scenes work.
Increased communication and visibility of collection staff and their work can also assist conservators in furthering a preservation message.
AIC collaborations with organizations such as ICON, Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, Association of Registrars and Collection Specialists, the Society of Historical Archaeology, regional organizations, and others can only help us to better understand each other’s goals and develop methods to work together.

The contributors:Moderator – Becky Fifield; Note Taker – Christian Hernandez; Table Participants – Molly Gleeson, Amy Brost, Kathryn Oat Grey, Nicholas Dorman, Melanie Brussat, Felicity Devlin, Ann Shaftel

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Outreach to Allies Session, May 9, Collection Care Network Brainstorming Session: Table 5 – Alexander Architectural Archive Archivists

The last presentation of the Outreach to Allies Session at the AIC Annual Meeting 2012 was an interactive session organized by the Collection Care Network. The leadership team of the network designed it as a way to identify priorities and projects for the network. Imagine nine groups of 7 to 9 people sitting around tables discussing the content of a nine different short videos. Each video presented a collection-care challenge or question. The discussion aimed to suggest projects the Collection Care Network could develop that would provide tools to overcome the challenge or answer the question. Now imagine people engaged in conversation. So engaged they didn’t get up for food when asked to do so! So engaged they had to be asked a second time!! Now you have a very small idea of what the session was like. This particular post gives you more details about the discussion at Table 5. Look for the other 8 posts if you would like to review all the discussions.

Table Five: Working with archivists is very close to my heart, so I was very happy to moderate table 5. Archivists must deal with masses of materials and a collections approach is the only thing that normally makes any sense for them. As such, I see archivists as a perfect community to work with the collections conservation network.

The video: This video has three speakers, Nancy Sparrow, Curatorial Assistant for Public Service, Beth Dodd, Curator, and Donna Coates, Technical Services and Collections Manager for the Alexander Architectural Archive at the University of Texas at Austin. Like many archives, they are never likely to have a full-time conservator on staff and they seek avenues to communicate with the conservation community. Some of the specific issues they have right now are:

How much light exposure can be allowed for architectural linens? They need more specific information than is given in the current NISO standards.
They need to display fragile, oversize materials periodically. One iconic drawing on tracing paper is about 4′ x 8′, and needs to be displayed several times each year. They would like ideas or guidelines for handling the materials safely.
Can they, or the student workers who work with them, perform minor treatments, such as small mends and simple mold removal, in-house? Can conservators provide guidelines for what can, and cannot be done in-house without a conservator on staff?

Each of the archivists in the video has great respect for conservators and would like a closer relationship with that community.

The discussion: The video prompted a lively discussion about the need to make straightforward, accessible information about conservation and preservation readily available to the public. An interesting idea to come out of this session is working toward manning a “hot line” staffed by conservators. The public could call in and get advice, and pay a fee when possible. In some cases, rather than being billed they might be sent a receipt for an in-kind donation that might be used toward a grant or another effort. This might give the public access to conservation information and let them understand the cost associated with the information.

The ideas for Collection Care Network projects:

Use social networking tools to make information available.
Publish guidelines for care, display and handling.
Collections Link in the UK might provide some models for us to consider.

The contributors: Moderator – Karen Pavelka; Note Taker – Amanda Holden; Table participants -Kristen Adsit, Jane Hinger , Rustin Levenson, Josefina Lopez, Caroline Peach, David West

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting (2012): The Great Debate – Part II

If you read the previous Great Debate Part I post feel free to skip this introduction and jump down to the meat of the post, the team’s statements below,…

Kudos go to Richard McCoy, Conservator of Objects & Variable Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art for instigating and moderating the first Great Debate at the AIC 2012 Annual Meeting. This session consisted of two Oxford-Style Debate sessions of 30 minutes each on a chosen topic. Each debate session consisted of initial presentations from each team, then members of the audience were allowed to ask questions and each debate team was given time to respond, followed by closing arguments. Before the debate the audience was polled by a show of hands on who agreed or disagreed with the statement. After the debate the audience was asked whose opinions were swayed so that a winning team could be chosen. This method for choosing a winner elicited some amusing debate in and of itself with Richard exclaiming in mock exasperation “You are supposed to debate each other – not me!”

This dry introduction doesn’t represent the fun and excitement that ensued during the actual debate. I can’t remember any sessions at previous AIC meetings that elicited raucous laughter, huge applause, and cheers and boos from the crowded room. Richard projected a huge stopwatch on the screen to time the statements and I can only imagine how nervous it made the debaters because it got my pulse racing just watching it! Richard was very clear that debaters were chosen for their willingness to participate and were not necessarily representing their personal views on the topics. This was notably pointed out in a “gotcha” moment when the Affirmative team asked Negative Team member Hugh Shockey if he would be willing to go without the fabulous microscope stand donated by a tour visitor!

The participants must be complemented on their willingness to put themselves forward and get into the spirit with a bit of trash talking and theatrics (Hugh’s dark glasses and Richard’s big (read geeky) floppy bow tie. I think this exemplified that it is possible to debate topics of real importance within our profession and professional society without rancor or taking ourselves too seriously. This session was clearly a crowd favorite and I hope it will be repeated at future meetings. Below is the statement for the second debate topic and text or talking points from the two teams. The second debate will be included in a separate post. Please feel free to weigh in yourself by commenting here on the blog.

TOPIC #2: Having conservators perform treatments in the gallery is the most successful way to generate funding for museums and raise awareness about the profession

For the affirmative:

Vanessa Muros
Camille Breeze
Kristen Adsit

Opening Statement:

Obviously having conservators perform treatments in the public eye is the best way to raise awareness of the profession and funds for an institution.

These exhibitions cause more people to visit the institution. In 2006 before they started performing in-gallery treatments, the UK conservation nonprofit National Trust had 35,000 annual visitors. 6 years into a campaign to prioritize in-gallery treatments whenever possible, they now average 72,000, an over 50% increase in visitorship.

In-gallery treatment gets the undivided attention of visitors, and engage people more fully than is possible with other outreach methods. The interpersonal interaction with a conservator is also more impactful than a more mediated method of outreach, such as videos or publications.

In-gallery treatments demystify the role of the professional conservator and the process of caring for our cultural heritage. Even other workers inside the institution can understand the role of the conservator in a new way when they are able to witness a treatment in process, as paintings conservators at the Indianapolis Museum of Art pointed out after their 2009 in-gallery treatment of Sebastiano Mainardi’s 1507 altarpiece.

These interventions further generate public interest through increased press coverage of such treatments. According to Suzanne Thomassen-Krauss, the lead conservator of the National Museum of American History’s public treatment of the Star Spangled Banner, that project generated more than 1,500 clips in national and international newspapers, radio and TV.

This is a great way to showcase the complexity and centrality of the conservators role in the museum. Once you have engaged an audience, you have the opportunity to create a complete and nuanced understanding of our work. However you will only get that chance if you first have their attention, and the best way to get that attention is by performing in-gallery treatments.

Public conservation treatments directly generate funds for the museum.

A great example of this comes from this year’s Angels project at the San Miguel chapel in Santa Fe. The project manager Jake told me of a donor who both gave money and volunteered his time as a direct result of seeing the restoration work that was already taking place.
As our opponent Hugh Shockey should know, the first fellowship at the Lunder Center was funded by a donor who saw Amber Kerr-Allison treating a painting

Giving to support in-gallery treatments amounts to more bang for your buck. It not only enables a specific conservation intervention to be performed, but it also amounts to funding for education and outreach.

This can generate goodwill within the conservator’s institution since other departments such as education and marketing also benefit from the in-gallery treatment project. That kind of goodwill can help enable the Conservation department to achieve other goals.

In-gallery treatments demonstrate that funding for conservation is a good return on investment. By showing the painstaking process of treatment, documentation and outreach, it demonstrates to the viewer that we’re multifaceted professionals who much be resourceful, and why treatment can take so much time.

And the results of your donation are tangible, which further engages donor and allows some ownership of their donation and the project

Honestly, how can they argue against this? What else could be more effective at raising awareness of the profession than showing and talking to people about what we do? What other means of giving benefits the donor and the institution more?

For the negative:

Suzanne Davis
Hugh Shockey
Sharra Grow

Opening Statement:

Having conservators perform treatments in the gallery is NOT the most successful way to generate funding for museums and raise awareness about the profession.

Because:

The quality of treatment done on site is never the same as that done in the lab, therefore, conservation is at a disadvantage at representing itself in the galleries.
What kind of awareness do we want the visiting audience to have?
By treating artwork in the gallery, visitors have a skewed understating of where/how conservation is done, taken out of the context of the studio/lab where all needed supplies and conditions are provided for the best treatment… for example, working away from the organization of the lab presents treatment as disorganized and haphazard as it requires frequent shuttling of tools and materials not originally anticipated for conducting treatment
The experience and perception of each visitor is dependent on interaction with the conservator leaving accurate understanding of the treatment outside the conservator’s control if the visitor chooses not to interact. Seeing a work mid-treatment denies the visitor the opportunity to experience it as intended by the maker. Without a full understanding of what they are seeing, they can question the stewardship of the museum in caring for its collection.
The stress of managing treatment and public interaction necessarily creates a distraction, which misrepresents treatment protocol, and neither treatment nor public interaction are done to the best of the conservator’s ability.

Further, we would ask; who is the target audience when doing treatment in the gallery?

Conservation on display in the galleries cannot generate awareness on its own without addition publicity channels, as visitation to the museum is already limited to self-selected patrons, thus negating the idea that conservation in the galleries is what generates awareness.
In addition, the giving potential of the visiting public is limited and is therefore not an ideal source of fundraising, as it is widely understood that wealthy individual patrons are more capable of supporting the expensive endeavor of conservation. And public display minimizes the incentive for higher level donors seeking exclusive access and experience in the museum.

Today we are not debating whether or not treatment in the galleries may be a nice idea and possibly worth pursuing. We are arguing whether or not performing treatments in the gallery is the most successful way to (1) generate funding and (2) raise awareness about the profession. Our points clearly show above that it is NOT.

RESULTS…

As with the first topic, the majority of the room’s packed audience agreed with the Negative Team when polled before the debate. Yet once again, the Affirmative Team won the debate as the “after” poll showed that they convinced more people to change their opinion. I did ask a question of the debaters and and said that I personally am not sure whether in gallery treatments are the “best” way but every institution I’ve worked out brought their big ticket donors into the lab for VIP tours so it seems to me that Development Officers find what we do to be compelling at bringing in the funds! The Negative team nimbly stepped around my question and answered the question that they wanted to answer! But I must admit that I love working in the gallery and interacting with the public. I find that some visitors are very insightful and knowledgeable and others ask questions that are completely inane. It is a good reminder that we have lots of audiences at any given museum or site and that we have to figure out ways to serve them and the collections. Have you worked in a visible conservation lab or done in gallery treatments? Let us know about your experiences!

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting (2012): The Great Debate – Part I

Kudos go to Richard McCoy, Conservator of Objects & Variable Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art for instigating and moderating the first Great Debate at the AIC 2012 Annual Meeting. This session consisted of two Oxford-Style Debate sessions of 30 minutes each on a chosen topic. Each debate session consisted of initial presentations from the teams lasting for five minutes. Members of the audience were then allowed to ask questions and each debate team was given time to respond. Then each team gave closing arguments for an additional five minutes. Richard was very clear that debaters were chosen for their willingness to participate and were not necessarily representing their personal views on the topics. And, clearly the topics were chosen and worded to be provocative! Before the debate the audience was polled by a show of hands on who agreed or disagreed with the statement. After the debate the audience was asked whose opinions were swayed so that a winning team could be chosen.

This dry introduction doesn’t represent the fun and excitement that ensued during the actual debate. I can’t remember any sessions at previous AIC meetings that elicited raucous laughter, huge applause, and cheers and boos from the crowded room. Richard projected a huge stopwatch on the screen to time the statements and I can only imagine how nervous it made the debaters because it got my pulse racing just watching it! When Paul Messier’s iPad froze during his opening statement my heart lept to my mouth and his off the cuff comment became part of the drama.

The participants must be complemented on their willingness to put themselves forward and get into the spirit with a bit of trash talking and theatrics all in good fun. I think this demonstrated that it is possible to debate topics of real importance within our professional society without rancor or taking ourselves too seriously. This session was clearly a crowd favorite and I hope it will be repeated at future meetings. Below is the statement for the first debate topic and text or talking points from the two teams. The second debate will be included in a separate post. Please feel free to weigh yourself by commenting here on the blog.

TOPIC #1: Publishing accurate and complete “how-to guides” for conservation and restoration treatments online is the best way for us to care for cultural heritage in the 21st century.

For the affirmative:

Paul Messier
Karen Pavelka
Mary Striegel

Opening Statements

As our colleagues on the other side will no doubt point out, you can’t teach conservation using new digital technologies, like say, the internet. What they mean, of course, is that you can’t teach conservation treatment. And if you choose to focus on treatment as the defining attribute of our profession then my team has powerful arguments in store. But of course the field is more than treatment. The keywords we should all focus on are:

Publish
Guides
Cultural Heritage
Best

Publish: We in conservation, especially those of us privileged with something worth sharing, have a professional obligation to communicate that knowledge. Publishing online has tremendous advantages in terms of cost, environmental sustainability and the ability to immediately reach people globally.

Guides: What’s a guide? A guide is not a rote set of formulas and solutions. A guide is just that: It provides information helpful to formulating a solution, for treatment issues and beyond. A guide is patently not prescriptive. Guides promote thinking. Guides do not shut it down.

Cultural Heritage: As conservators we have an obligation to look beyond our own immediate challenges and confront some of our own biases. The world is a big place and again, we who have the privilege of educations developed through internships and academic training don’t want to be in a position of saying to the world “you have to do it our way.” Instead we need to break through educational, ethnic, economic, religious barriers to effectively serve material culture and reach those with the courage to stand up and defend it.

“Best”: Best does not mean “only.” Of course there will always be a place for “traditional” conservation education. But if you are serious about your ethical obligation to do the most good for the greatest number of objects then you must get serious about moving content online.

Conservation Online has roughly 10,000 subscribers in 92 countries. In his remarkable career of graduate school training Dan Kushel has had, give or take, 340 students — from a handful of countries. It’s great that these fortunate students were able to command such lavish resources. But is that realistic for needs of cultural heritage globally? We can and should do more.

Announcing EDX a new joint venture to put MIT and Harvard courses online, MIT president Susan Hockfield said “you can choose to view this era as one of threatening change and unsettling volatility, or you can see it as a moment charged with the most exciting possibilities presented to educators in our lifetimes.”

Like MIT and Harvard, we cannot afford nostalgia for the way we were trained to cloud our vision for the future.

For the negative:

Victoria Montana Ryan
Scott Carrlee
Matthew Skopek

Opening Statement

“Publishing accurate and complete.” With best practices constantly evolving how quickly will complete and accurate be incomplete, inaccurate, and obsolete? Online “how-to-treatment-guides” could become the 8-track tapes of conservation that AIC would need to maintain – maybe of interest historically but no one would use. Technology moves fast and keeping up with changes demands time. Our esteemed colleagues might well argue that an online format would be the easiest to enable quick updates.

Quick and easy doesn’t necessarily mean accurate and complete and current mechanisms for publishing a complete and accurate online “how-to guide” can sometimes be difficult. Publishing a peer-reviewed article is very different from throwing something up on a blog. Well researched publications are already currently available in a variety of formats – what does an online “how-to-treatment-guide” really contribute? Let us consider return on investment. A recent article by Adrian Ellis, published in the winter 2012 edition of Grantmakers in the Arts, notes stresses placed on organizations when there is a mismatch between expectations and capacity. This could easily apply to AIC if we were to be constantly trying to update “how-to-guides”. With limited resources what would the return on the investment be?

What if accurate and complete “best practices” include methods, materials, equipment, etc. that are beyond the reach of most members – will their businesses be hurt by owners whose expectations may be too great? Will owners insist on pursuing actions that may be neither feasible nor necessary, thus leading to increased costs and ultimately have a net result of actually reducing conservation treatments? Another problem with online “how-to-treatment-guides” is there is no one there to answer questions that arise or to provide insights or warnings if one goes astray. There is often difficulty in translating what one reads or hears into correct action – and is always subject to misinterpretation. Given the many variables of conservation treatments such guides may be a useful adjunct in teaching arenas but is no substitution for hands-on teaching.

“Best way for us to care for cultural heritage in 21st century” Really? A “how-to guide” for the 21st century? Such a guide seems so 19th century, rather irrelevant. How-to guides might have been fine when the paradigm was scarcity of available information but now we have an abundance (overload) of information. We (AIC) should not be trying to produce or police “how-to treatment-guides” but rather seek to be learned guides, an authoritative voice in the cacaphony of the internet, empowering today’s user with information that discusses the complexities, nuances, judgment and experience that are necessary at every step of conservation. Today’s consumers of information want to curate their own content and a “how-to-guide” does not cover the why or why-not, the critical thinking, that is vital to the process. We need to show that preservation is relevant, so while informational and educational publications and videos are important they should be geared more toward the thinking process and not treatment recipes. Defining the target audience and creating guides for care, that are less likely to become quickly outdated, may be a better approach to engaging others, in both thought and participation, in the quest to care for cultural heritage in the 21^st century.

The central point is that for AIC/The Conservation Profession to be relevant in a web based world, we need to be seen as the source for timely, relevant and accurate information, but this does not mean how to guides for treatment.

RESULTS!…

In the audience poll before the debate there was overwhelming support for the negative position. From my perspective as AIC’s e-Editor this was not a surprise, but frankly was somewhat disheartening. I was pleasantly surprised that whether due to reason or impassioned delivery, it was the Affirmative Team who managed to sway more people to their side when the poll was repeated after the debate concluded. While this was clearly still a minority view, it showed that there are compelling reasons for us to be putting our material online. Congratulations to all involved.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting, Outreach Session, May 11, “Communicating the Smithsonian Haiti Cultural Recovery Project: Outreach and Reportage,” by Stephanie Hornbeck, Eric Pourchot, Viviana Dominguez, Junior Norelus and Saori Kawasumi

PANELISTS

Stephanie Hornbeck (Chief Conservator, Smithsonian Haiti Cultural Recovery Project), moderator and panelist; email: shornbeck@caryatid-conservation.com; web: www.caryatid-conservation.com

Viviana Dominguez (Co-Director St. Trinity murals conservation project; Painting Conservator, Haiti Cultural Recovery Center) panelist; email: art.conservation.services@gmail.com; web: www.artconservationla.com

Eric Pourchot (Director of Institutional Advancement, AIC), panelist; email: epourchot@conservation-us.org; web: www.conservation-us.org

Junior Norelus (Chief Conservation Technician, Holy Trinity Murals Conservation Project), panelist; email: norelus_1@hotmail.com

Saori Kawasumi, (Third Year Student, Buffalo State College Art Conservation Program), panelist; email: kawasumisaori@gmail.com

Note: Rosa Lowinger (Co-Director St. Trinity murals conservation project), intended moderator. Rosa conceived of the session topic but could ultimately not attend this AIC Annual Meeting due to a scheduling conflict.

SESSION DESCRIPTION

The Smithsonian Institution Haiti Cultural Recovery Project was an 18-month long international, collaborative effort to recover the damaged cultural patrimony from Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake. Fifty (50) conservators and collection managers in staff, contract and volunteer capacities participated in the effort. Twenty public and private institutions received conservation assistance. Ultimately, 30,000 works of art, documents, books and monuments were stabilized.

Our project was a large, international project with many participants and as such, it can be seen to be an example of the media challenges faced by comparable large conservation projects. We hoped in sharing our experiences to inform the conservation community and ideally to encourage improvements with future presentations of conservation information to diverse audiences and media outlets.

This outreach session presented the myriad ways in which the Smithsonian Institution Haiti Cultural Recovery Center project was reported and communicated- both to the conservation field and to the general public. The panelists consisted of individuals who worked on the project in different capacities and wrote about it and/ or reported it through conferences, seminars, interviews, press conferences, blogging and other reportage.

Among the places where this project was internationally reported or communicated include print (the book Saving Haiti’s Heritage: Cultural Recovery After the Earthquake by Richard Kurin, 2011; The New York Times, ARTnews, The Art Newspaper, AICNews, Haitian newspapers), television (“The Today Show,” upcoming program on Smithsonian Channel in December 2012), radio (NPR), various Internet sites (Smithsonian website, US Committee of the Blue Shield website, WNYC.com, Episcopal News Service, and c-monster), Facebook and blog posts, professional presentations and panels and press conferences.

The primary objective was to discuss how conservation information is disseminated and portrayed in diverse media and how we as conservators, who were involved with this project, helped to communicate particular aspects of the project and dealt with repercussions of the information being distributed. We discussed the ways in which information about the project was tailored to specific audiences and shared anecdotes of how a lack of information control was sometimes problematic.

The challenges of accurately presenting technical conservation information to a non-specialist audience were presented. In a discussion of formal media interactions, the primary challenge is how the project’s activities can be accurately reported by an outside party, like a reporter, journalist, documentarian, etc. It can be a frustrating experience to give a long interview only to see the full context go by the wayside in the editing process. The opportunity to see draft copy of external publications is very rare indeed. Yet, when errors, omissions and inadequate acknowledgements ensue, they can be difficult to correct after the fact and might cause offense.

Internal challenges/conflicts regarding the presentation of project information also arose, presenting significant complications, as they bring colleagues into conflict. Incidents occurred where volunteer conservators overstepped their roles without getting proper permission before photographing, filming, and recording projects to which they were not attached. In these cases, neither the project manager nor the proprietor of the collection in question were asked in advance about filming and appropriate photo/film credits. The almost-instantaneous dissemination of information now possible with social media, makes it even more important to be cautious, considerate, and professional before uploading material on-line.

At times, disagreements arose with our Haitian project colleagues regarding the presentation and dissemination of project conservation information. In attempting to resolve the situation, requests were made that staff conservators write all conservation-related articles and that the internal review of all press releases include conservators prior to their distribution. These requests were met inconsistently. Other US-funded conservation projects that occur in foreign countries likely encounter similar struggles over imparting conservation information, sharing or acknowledging credit, and in claiming ownership of project successes.

ISSUES THE PANELISTS ADDRESSED

– What are the challenges of presenting conservation/technical information to a general audience?

– Our project had a large number of participants working in volunteer, contract and staff capacities. To what degree should dissemination of project information to various audiences and media outlets be controlled/regulated? Is it even possible to control the dissemination of information?

– How did actual reportage outcomes reflect desired communication outcomes? Was “the message” conveyed accurately? Did the relevant parties receive appropriate acknowledgement?

– Who are appropriate “spokespeople?” Should any project participant feel free to speak about the project publicly? Or, should restrictions be implemented?

ABSTRACTS OF INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATIONS

Stephanie Hornbeck presented the topic: “Representing the Smithsonian in Formal Media Outlets and Overview of Project Efforts to Present to the Media.” As Chief Conservator for the Smithsonian Haiti Cultural Recovery Project she served as the Port-au-Prince-based project liaison to the Smithsonian. In addition to her conservation responsibilities, Stephanie was one of the official contacts for the project and as such could be contacted variously by a conservator, a media representative or an individual person, in the general public. As is likely true for other conservators, who serve as official personnel for a large, international effort, the role of media communicator was only one aspect of her job. Although the project’s resident conservator first and foremost, outreach communication of project conservation efforts was of critical importance and did require her regular attention. Serving in an official capacity, she approached the role of information dissemination formally. Her primary responsibilities in communication efforts were to provide information about the dire state of damage to Haiti’s cultural and artistic property, to communicate the project’s global conservation objectives, to report on project conservation efforts underway, and to present project conservation results achieved. Stephanie also needed to support the larger mission of the project and to emphasize our collaborative efforts both in Haiti and with American and international conservation experts. She encountered media communication challenges internally among project personnel over the authorship and review of project conservation information and the acknowledgement of conservators in project successes.

Eric Pourchot (Director of Institutional Advancement, AIC), presented the topic AIC’s role in publicizing the Haiti project. His paper title, “You Don’t Have to Call me Darlin’, Darlin’, but You Didn’t Even Use my Name,” wittily referenced the importance of acknowledgement. Eric addressed how AIC—an integral partner in the Haiti project, coordinating AIC volunteer conservator deployments and supply procurement—was represented by the media. He emphasized how the actual media coverage could sometimes differ significantly from the desired message. Media coverage about the Haiti project was an opportunity to provide information about AIC to the general public, an opportunity that sometimes went awry through omission. He also noted how initially the project sponsor, the Smithsonian Institution, controlled the media message exclusively. AIC was one of thirteen partners in the Haiti project, supporting to various degrees the collaboration of the sponsors: the Smithsonian and the Government of Haiti. Eric noted that the Haiti project was a complex network of partnerships and project objectives and media outlets tend to prefer concise renderings. The perpetual issues of shaping the message and of receiving proper acknowledgement resonated for others, who participate in large, multi-institutional conservation collaborations.

Viviana Dominguez (Co-Director St. Trinity murals conservation project; painting conservator, Haiti Cultural Recovery Center) presented the topic of conveying technical conservation information about the St. Trinity Murals Conservation Project in Haiti and at international (non-US) venues. She briefly introduced the fourteen murals painted by famous Haitian artists that originally decorated the cathedral interior and how the team, composed of six local artists and two professional conservators (Viviana and Rosa Lowinger), rescued the only three standing murals that survived the earthquake. Viviana proceeded to describe how a February 2011 article about the conservation project published in The New York Times, a year after the earthquake (www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/world/americas/23haiti.html) immediately drew international news agencies such as Reuters and the Associated Press to the site. In addition, the project was presented to the local media during two press conferences in Haiti. Viviana addressed the challenges of accurately presenting technical conservation information to a non-specialist audience and the creative ways she incorporated her team of Haitian technicians to present the information to the Haitian public. The mutely-cultural presenters, including Richard Kurin (Smithsonian Institution Under Secretary) Olsen Jean-Julian (Cultural Recovery Center Manager) the Haitian Archbishop of the cathedral, the ministers of Tourism and Culture. Both conferences were broadcast on the national news channels and in newspapers. Viviana and Rosa also presented the project to conservation peers in conferences abroad in Argentina, Barbados, Canada, Peru, and Spain.

Junior Norelus (Chief Technician, St. Trinity murals conservation project) presented the topic of communicating the St. Trinity Murals Conservation Project in Haiti to non-conservation specialists via Haitian media outlets. On our project, our Haitian colleagues served as liaisons to Haitian professionals in the culture sector, to the Haitian press, and to the general public. This communication conduit was critical to successfully building interest in the project and to conveying accurate information in the Kreyol and French languages spoken in Haiti. A professional artist, Junior described how his own thinking regarding preservation evolved through working on the Smithsonian project for a year. He also described the impact his television appearance had on his family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, who became immediately interested on the project, presenting him opportunities to explain the importance of conserving Haitian cultural patrimony, a new concept in Haiti.

Saori Kawasumi (third year student, Buffalo program, student intern, Haiti Cultural Recovery Center) presented the topic of the student’s perspective in connecting to multiple communities. She contrasted her more informal, “bottom-up” communication efforts to the formal “top-down” efforts described by Stephanie and Eric. Her information-sharing involved discussions with professional colleagues and peers, reading and sharing blog posts, and telling anecdotes about her daily life on the project to family and friends. Saori described how her assigned project involved working on a daily basis with a Haitian conservation assistant and the challenges of being an instructor to him, even as she was a student herself. As one of two graduate conservation students (with Cindy Lee Scott), who spent July 2011 on the Haiti project, Saori expressed how students can contribute uniquely to a large project. Even as the Haiti project seemed daunting to her at the outset, she realized that as a member of the upcoming generation of professional conservators, her contributions were valued and the experience may serve her in the future.

PRIMARY POINTS DEVELOPED IN DISCUSSION

An engaging, forty-minute discussion period followed the panel presentations. A number of AIC Haiti volunteer conservators were in attendance and many contributed their thoughts on the subjects presented. In addition to several questions regarding transition efforts of the project (which ended in December 2011); the following points were emphasized:

● As with the Haiti project, conservation projects that occur in foreign countries need to collaborate with local professionals for important outreach and communication efforts.

● Within a project, it is important to implement open internal communication about content and media distribution of press releases and other outreach communications. Project conservators should write or vet all conservation information.

● Written communication guidelines for project participants would be useful. The guidelines should describe the project mission; the roles and contact information of key personnel; and guidance about photograph credits.

● Before publishing work—in print media or on-line—on a project, inform the project personnel and ask about appropriate credits to include.

● Even with more informal outlets, such as blogs and social media communication, professional consideration should be give to properly citing the project.

● Acknowledgement of the project sponsor, relevant partners, project personnel and collaborators is important. Spell names correctly and use accurate titles/affiliations.

● Prior permission to photograph works in a collection should be obtained from the museum curator/ director/collection proprietor.

● Images of works of art should include photo credits with the name of the photographer, the name of the collection to which it belongs, and if possible the title of the work.

● Share your publication with project personnel. They will likely be appreciative of the exposure, enthusiastic about your effort to publicize the project, and may increase the circulation of your publication.

SELECT LINKS TO MEDIA COVERAGE

For more information about the Smithsonian Haiti Cultural Recovery Project, please see:

Richard Kurin’s book about the project is now available. Saving Haiti’s Heritage: Cultural Recovery after the Earthquake (Smithsonian Institution, 2011) includes numerous essay contributions by participating conservators. More information about the book can be found on the website below.

The Smithsonian Haiti Cultural Recovery Project website, has a webpage entirely devoted to the extensive media coverage, with links to articles included: www.haiti.si.edu

Stay tuned: the Smithsonian Channel (on Showtime) will present a television program on the Haiti Cultural Recovery Project in December 2012.

“The Journey to Recovery: A Tale of Earthquake Damage and Repair in Haiti,” by Stephanie Hornbeck and Viviana Dominguez. The Bigger Picture Blog, Smithsonian Institution Archives, February 23, 2012. The story of the dramatic damage context and advanced treatment of a Stivenson Magloire painting broken into 22 fragments by the 2010 earthquake: http://siarchives.si.edu/blog/journey-recovery-tale-earthquake-damage-and-repair-haiti

“Haiti Heritage Rescue Could Stall,” By Emily Sharpe. The Art Newspaper. Conservation, Issue 229, November 2011 Published online: 15 November 2011. Chief conservator stresses need for continuity of funding after handover to local authorities: http://theartnewspaper.com/articles/Haiti-heritage-rescue-could-stall/25000

“Haiti’s Scars, and its Soul, Find Healing on Walls,” By Damien Cave. The New York Times. February 22, 2011. One of the project’s main initiatives, the removal of the wall paintings from St. Trinity Episcopal Church, received wide coverage, including this article: : www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/world/americas/23haiti.html

“The Art of Recovery,” cover story interview with Stephanie, Wellesley magazine (fall 2011): http://issuu.com/Wellesley/docs/2011_fall_issuu

Video clip from “The Today Show”: http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/historians-work-to-restore-haitian-murals/6wolcrd

Viviana’s blog overview of treating Haitian paintings: http://rescuinghaitianart.blogspot.com/

Article describing Viviana’s presentation at Instituto Universitario Nacional de Arte Buenos Aires: http://www.iuna.edu.ar/agenda/863-conferencia-murales-de-la-catedral-de-saint-trinite-en-haiti

Rosa’s blog on the St. Trinity murals: http://c-monster.net/blog1/2011/07/26/haiti-report/

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting- “Assessing Risks to Your Collections” Workshop with Robert Waller, May 8th, 2012

I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a workshop at the beginning of the 2012 AIC Conference with Robert Waller entitled, “Assessing Risks to Your Collections”. I decided to attend this particular course because many museums struggle with creating preservation priorities for their collections and this task is daunting to both small and large museums. Risk assessment tools can assist in identifying priorities for collections care and a museum can in turn invest strategically in projects to protect collections from hazards both in the present and future. I hoped to gain an understanding of risk management tools to better assist future preservation planning in my own museum and to relate the information I gained to the members of the Museum Association of Arizona, a museum organization that helped support my registration.

The workshop began at 9am and, in regular workshop fashion, participants began to introduce themselves to the group. This, of course, enabled participants to get comfortable with one another in order to start the business of learning about risk assessment. There was a large constituency of Latin American Scholars present at the workshop, as well as other international attendees from places like Haiti and Korea. Attendees were also diverse in specialties which included photographs, objects, paintings, textiles, as well as different levels of education including some pre-program students, but all of course had an interest in the preservation of cultural heritage. I was fortunate to have been in a group of both intelligent and friendly people that were willing to discuss and work together on all of the exercises.

Robert Waller introduced the overall objective and methods he would be using in order for participants to quickly learn the materials in this intense one day workshop. He was patient in describing each step, but also moved the workshop along to get in as much information as possible in such a short amount of time. The main goal of the workshop was to demonstrate the Cultural Property Risk Analysis Model. By identifying risks to collections using this tool, museums can target resources more efficiently through strategic planning. More specifically, the workshop enabled participants to:

Identify risks – by ”agent of deterioration” and “type of risk”.
Define risks clearly.
Assess the magnitude of defined risks.
Evaluate data and present information to stakeholders.

Systematically plan risk mitigation strategies by:

Identifying means of control – methods and levels.
Evaluating costs/risks/benefits of mitigation strategies.

The workshop was extremely interactive(not for the shy)and participants learned through a variety of means including lectures, demonstrations, brainstorming in small groups, group presentations, exercises, practice, and discussions. Small prizes were utilized to further motivate the groups (my group got chocolate!!). A well composed manual with a shiny protective cover was given to all participants. The manual consisted of all the course content exercises, references and a glossary of terms which I know will be a good resource and was much appreciated.

One of my favorite exercises was estimating the magnitude of risk to the display cases at the Albuquerque convention center. Each group was assigned their own case which encompassed a variety of materials and preservation issues. The groups worked together to calculate the magnitude of risk by using all of the steps worked out in class. We had to define the specific risks in our case, determine the fraction of susceptibility, the loss in value, the probability of occurrence, and the extent to which the susceptible is affected. This exercise really helped me put together all of the components discussed in the workshop lectures. Working with the other participants was also very valuable as they had differing opinions and it was necessary to work together to come to a consensus, much like in a real life scenario working with other museum colleagues. This gave participants a realistic view of what is involved in performing a risk assessment and gave a level of comfort in using what was learned.

In the end, I feel like I have a much better grasp of assessing risks to collections and will be able to more effectively communicate these risks in a way that will be useful to facilitate strategic preservation planning. This model of comprehensive analysis of risks can provide a guide for appropriate actions in order to effectively mitigate the rate of loss to a collection. All of the information provided during the workshop will be very useful to me and I hope to use these strategies in the near future and share them with my colleagues.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting-Working With Artists Luncheon

Moderated by Nancy Odegaard, this lunch session featured three speakers, Landis Smith, Charles Stable and Glenn Wharton, who gave presentations about their experiences working with artists-from specific case studies to broad approaches-to carry out conservation work in museums. All of the speakers touched on the idea that working with artists was necessary to determine a sense of the essence of the objects/artwork-even if they weren’t working with the artists who created created the items in question. These engaging talks were followed by a question and answer session which gave the speakers and the audience the opportunity to explore questions and concerns about the role of the conservator and the artist in interpreting and preserving museum collections.

The first speaker was Landis Smith, who spoke about her experiences working with indigenous artists. She has worked with people from many different communities, from tribes in the Southwest US to Native Alaskans, and in her career she has seen as shift in the way that museums work with these communities-from a post-colonial way of working toward facilitating greater access to collections for indigenous people. She has learned how objects from these communities are more than just objects-they are an embodiment of culture, traditional knowledge and memory, and this has affected how she carries out examination and documentation. She touched upon the idea that working with artists in this way always involves a risk-benefit assessment; that there is a middle ground to be found between artist intent, object meaning and conservation needs.

Landis stressed the importance of working collaboratively with indigenous communities so that we can better interpret, document and exhibit their material culture. While most of the consultations she spoke about were in-person, she also briefly mentioned a live video consultation carried out as part of the Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: the First Peoples of Alaska at the Smithsonian. Using new technologies for this type of interaction may allow for more conversations and collaborative projects to take place that otherwise might be prohibitively costly or logistically difficult. For any consultation, Landis stressed the importance of preparing in advance so that this experience can result in a meaningful information exchange and to allow a real dialog to take place.

Landis concluded her talk with a discussion of the fact that the missing link for ethnographic conservators is spending time in these communities. She recently worked with NMAI to organize a trip for their conservators and Mellon fellows visit communities in and around Santa Fe and Albuquerque. This type of experience offers the unique opportunity for conservators to being to make the link between the objects and the culture, the people and the landscape.

Charles Stable spoke next about a project at the National Museum of Scotland, where the museum worked with a Maori artist to recreate missing components of a war canoe in the collection. The canoe has mostly resided in storage and it cannot be attributed to a specific Maori community-it was likely made as a trade piece-and has been challenging to interpret. As a result, the museum consulted with Maori artist George Nuku, who suggested that the canoe was a pastiche that was not constructed by a Maori. He recommended that certain components be removed and replaced and the museum worked with him so that he could create pieces using his own inspiration and materials. Both Nuku and the museum wanted it to be obvious that these new components were reproductions, so Nuku chose to make these pieces in his material of choice-Perspex, which is essentially the same as Plexiglas. After creating these components he added new abalone shell inlays, and bound the pieces to the rest of the canoe using traditional methods.

During the talk, I believe that Charles mentioned that Perspex is not a stable material and so there would be issues with its preservation over time. Perspex is a Poly (methyl methacrylate)-I’m still not certain why it has preservation issues-it’s possible that due to the way Nuku carves into the Perspex, which may make it more brittle? If anyone else knows more about this please leave a comment!

In the end, this project was an attempt to balance the integrity of the object with Nuku’s interpretations and artistic expression. While some may find this type of work controversial, Charles pointed out that all of the additions made are reversible. To hear George Nuku speak about this project and to see him work on the new canoe components, follow this link.

The third speaker was Glenn Wharton, Time-based Media Conservator at MoMA and NYU Conservation Center faculty member. Glenn spoke about several projects at MoMA that have involved working with artists to exhibit their work many years after they were created. In the case of these artists and their work, there were questions about how the exhibition should look or be configured, so he requested interviews. He discussed the fact that working with the artists in this way results in the conservator, curator and artist working together to construct the authenticity of the artwork.

Glenn presented several examples, including Valie Export’s 1967-68 “Abstract Film No. 1”, John Maeda’s 2004 “Reactive Books” and Bruce Nauman’s 1993 “Think.” In some cases, because of technology or because the fact that the original artwork was a performance piece, the work as it was originally shown could not and cannot be exhibited. In these cases, Glenn has worked with the artist to identify the essence of their work and how this can be properly communicated to the public in a new exhibition. He spoke about the re-exhibition of these pieces as “translations” and “reconstitutions” of their artwork. In some cases, the pieces are re-dated to include the new date of exhibition, since this new exhibition is still part of the piece. So, for example, Bruce Nauman’s Think was originally created and exhibited in 1993 as 2 videos playing on 2 CRT monitors on a metal table with playback equipment, but in 2009, the videos were exhibited on 2 plasma screens on DVD. Nauman’s Think is now dated 1993/2009.

Glenn also spoke about his conversation with John Maeda, who felt that his work, which incorporated CRT monitors and plasma screens, was not about technology, but rather about people interacting with the work. He felt that this interaction should be filmed and perhaps this was the best way to exhibit (or preserve) the work into the future, however Glenn also mentioned that this idea may not be fully resolved by the artist or the museum.

Questions and discussion followed the talks, including conversations about artists’ “afterthoughts”-the fact that an artist’s idea of what the essence of their work is may be a moving target. Glenn reminded everyone that even in these more extreme examples that were presented, all interventions are reversible, which allows for future reinterpretation and changes to be made-both by the artists and the museums.

Several people voiced opinions about the notion of an artist reinterpreting another artist’s work-some people took issue with this and others thought this was interesting and an important way to involve artists. Conservation, after all, is not neutral either, no matter how much of an attempt we make for it to be. This led to a discussion on the importance of documentation-as we all know, no matter what decisions are made, it is important to document both the interventions and the decision-making involved. Landis also commented that documentation helps us to take the subjectivity out of our decision-making.

I thoroughly enjoyed this session and the discussion-it was evident that this was a topic that can and should be revisited repeatedly in the future-especially as museums and the role that they play in our culture evolve. I hope that anyone reading this will feel welcome to leave comments as well to continue this discussion and to raise any points that I failed to mention!

Creative Endeavors and Expressive Ideas: Emerging Conservators Engaging through Outreach and Public Scholarship – Outreach to Allied Professionals

ECPN interviews emerging conservators reaching out to professional allies

LeeAnn Barnes Gordon, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Tell us a little about yourself-your background, where you’re working now and what you do in your current position?

I’m a recent graduate of the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. I work at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) as the Sherman Fairchild Fellow in Objects Conservation. At the MFA I am engaged in a variety of general conservation activities including examination and treatment, scientific analysis, exhibitions, and outreach. Through my conservation duties I interact with a broad range of museum professionals, interns, and the general public.

I have a special interest in archaeological conservation, and last summer I worked as the conservator at an archaeological field school in Cyprus.

I have been actively involved with AIC undertakings including several recent OSG Archaeological Discussion Group projects and the AIC Conservation Wiki.

What form of outreach are you using? If it is an online tool, please specify which platform (Blogspot, Tumblr, Twitter, etc.)

In the fall of 2011 I worked with members of the OSG’s Archaeological Discussion Group to create a brochure on Archaeological Conservation.

Who would you say is your target audience?

The primary audience for the brochure is field archaeologists, including project directors, staff, specialists, and students.

What were/are you trying to achieve using this form of outreach? Was it met or solved using this particular approach or tool?

The OSG’s Archaeological Discussion Group wanted to raise awareness among archaeologists about archaeological conservation as a profession. The group was keen to find ways to improve the accessibility of conservators to address statements that archaeologists “don’t know how to find conservators” for their projects. The brochure was created specifically as a handout for archaeological conferences, such as the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), where it would supplement a booth display about conservation. The brochure provides a convenient, portable reference about archaeological conservation with a focus on excavations at both terrestrial and underwater sites. It includes online resources and contact information. Colorful photographs, many of which were supplied by emerging conservators working on archaeological materials, are featured throughout the brochure to illustrate a variety of conservation activities described in the text. Most importantly, the brochure highlights archaeological conservation as a profession by emphasizing the specialized training that conservators of archaeological materials receive, as well as the role of our national membership organization, AIC, in establishing codes of ethics and guidelines for practice. At the 2012 AIA Annual Meeting the brochure was available at an exhibit booth hosted by AIC.

Is there anything you would do differently, or any recommendations you would make to other conservators who might want to use your approach / tool for themselves?

In general, creating a brochure as an outreach tool provides a flexible format that can be used in both a printed and digital form. At the AIA meeting we had positive comments and feedback about the brochure. I thought the handout was successful because it is a tangible resource that archaeologists can take with them, but it is important for AIC to maintain a presence at conferences and meetings like this in order to continue to network and reach more individuals.

Have your outreach endeavors produced any unexpected outcomes or benefits?

Not that I’m aware of….it may be too soon to say.

Check out the Archaeological Discussion Group’s website to learn more about this new initiative: www.conservation-us.org/archaeology

Archaeological Conservation Brochure Acknowledgements: Jessie Arista, Claudia Chemello, Suzanne Davis, Morgan Gilpatrick, Molly Gleeson, Susanne Grieve, Steven Koob, Ariel O’Connor, and Ruth Seyler.

Tara Hornung, Denver, CO

Tell us a little about yourself-your background, where you’re working now and what you do in your current position?

I came to conservation as an artist and discovered museums while an apprentice at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. I have worked in museums for over ten years and earned my masters degree from the Conservation Center, New York University. Currently, I am a conservator in private practice providing conservation consultation, project management, and treatment services for archaeological, historic, and artistic objects in private and museum collections.

What form of outreach are you using? If it is an online tool, please specify which platform (Blogspot, Tumblr, Twitter, etc.).

I present workshops for artists on archival materials. I am a photographer and printmaker, so I focus on teaching hinging, matting, and framing for artists who work on paper. Although that is not my specialty as a conservator, I consult with colleagues on best practices and try to translate that for artists.

Who would you say is your target audience?

For my framing workshops, I am targeting artists who are interested in best practices for exhibiting their works on paper and photographs. Most recently, I presented a workshop at the Light Room: A Photographic Community in Philadelphia.

What were/are you trying to achieve using this form of outreach? Was it met or solved using this particular approach or tool?

I try to teach the basic vocabulary of archival materials so that artists can choose products based on a knowledge of what I ‘archival’ means vs. a product label. I demonstrate the basic techniques of archival hinging/ mounting of works on paper and photographs, and work with individuals to problem solve a best practice solution for their artistic vision. Finally, I try to convince artists that it is worthwhile to choose archival materials. I believe that the workshop format is successful because it is a forum for dialog and discussing specific solutions.

Is there anything you would do differently, or any recommendations you would make to other conservators who might want to use your approach / tool for themselves?

My approach is informed by my own background as an artist with an understanding of the cost and time of preparing works for exhibit. I present best practices and then suggest a middleground based on how the workshop participants are willing to allot time and money.

Have your outreach endeavors produced any unexpected outcomes or benefits?

I convinced a workshop participant to stop using double stick tape to mount his salt prints. I continue to learn techniques for mounting and framing works on paper and photographs, which expands my knowledge of the field of conservation and fosters commraderie with my colleagues.

To learn more about Tara’s work, check out: http://artifactconservationservices.com/

Or her Facebook business page: Artifact Conservation Services