Dean Sully

Evolving challenges, developing skills

Abstract This paper explores various recent changes to the heritage context in which conservators now work, including changes to the accepted composition of the heritage, the inclusion of wider audiences, the understanding of wider, often intangible, meanings of objects, and the development of conservation as a social practice. Other factors such as funding pressures and climate change are also considered, together with their effects on conservation work patterns. The second part of the paper looks at the skills needed by conservators working in this evolving context, including both specialist and wider professional skills, and considers how these are to be developed. The final section examines the roles of formal university or college courses, internships or apprenticeships, and continuing professional development in equipping conservators for work in the 21st century.

Showcase construction: Materials and methods used at the museum of London

Abstract At the Museum of London, a number of permanent galleries have recently been refurbished mainly with cases that have been designed and constructed in‐house (by museum staff or contractors) rather than buying from specialist museum showcase manufacturers. This initiated a programme of testing construction materials, investigating recommended methods for reducing emissions, applying the results and monitoring case environments in use. It was found that with careful preparation, some relatively low‐cost materials can be used. Guidelines on materials such as wood products, barrier coatings and films, paints and graphics are given and preliminary work on venting cases and pollution monitoring is discussed.

Painting Hinemihi by numbers: Peoples- based conservation and the paint analysis of Hinemihi's carvings

Abstract This study describes the analysis of paint samples from carvings belonging to Hinemihi, the Maori meeting house, Clandon Park, Surrey, UK. The assessment of physical evidence contained within Hinemihis built fabric (along with historiographic research of archival sources and oral histories) has formed a key part of the information gathering process during the current conservation project. The production of such data provides an opportunity for a dialogue that is essential for effective decision-making within participatory conservation projects. From this, it is evident that the use of paint analysis, in deciding the eventual painted scheme for a restored Hinemihi, is settled within a broader dialogue about the conception, use, and management of Hinemihi as a Maori cultural centre, as built heritage, and as an object of conservation. Therefore, the value of material analysis is considered in relation to the potential that this information has to engage a community of users in designing an effective conservation response that seeks to balance the opportunities and constraints of the cultural and physical landscapes that surround Hinemihi and Clandon Park.

Locating Hinemihi’s People

The care of taonga (Maori treasures) outside the Maori community takes place within varying degrees of inter-cultural engagement, in which encounters with the past can be seen to be negotiated through the changing nature of personal and institutional relationships in the present. The desire to develop Hinemihi, the historic Maori meeting house at Clandon Park, as a functioning marae (ceremonial gathering place) has provided a challenge to conventional heritage conservation practice. A response to the conservation of Hinemihi has been to adapt practices developed by the Pouhere Taonga / New Zealand Historic Places Trust for the conservation of historic marae. The success of this approach relies on the formation of an active and sustainable marae community. Therefore, a series of community-based events have been delivered to nurture the developing relationships between Hinemihi and her people as an essential element of the conservation project. This has questioned the central role of Maori in the long-term care of Hinemihi. As a result, the formation of ‘Hinemihi’s People’ is an attempt to develop a sustainable conservation community for Hinemihi at Clandon Park that reflects a spatially and temporally grounded reality, based on lived experiences.

Finding the Fallen: Conservation and the First World War

Abstract This study concerns a group of objects excavated in First World War trenches in France and Belgium and brought for conservation to the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. These objects were associated with unidentified human remains thought to be of soldiers killed in battles between 1914 and 1918. The contribution of the Institute to this project was to investigate the objects in relation to their context in an attempt to identify the human remains with which they were associated. The experience of working on sensitive material in a very particular context is discussed, and how this influenced the conservation context in which the decision-making process happened is described. It also addresses how some conservation boundaries were crossed, in order to contribute to a better understanding of life during the First World War, and discusses how material culture is valued differently in different contexts (and how this will influence conservation decisions). It concludes that neither object meaning nor conservation decisions can be viewed objectively and that conservation has to be viewed as a social process governed by economic, political, religious, social and cultural dynamics, rather than a primarily technical process.

A significant statement: new outlooks on treatment documentation

Abstract Values-based conservation is an increasingly dominant theme in heritage conservation theory. It is less routine in the application of object conservation practice, where emphasis on the physical fabric of heritage prevails. Materials-based approaches pivot conservation decisions on assessments of object condition. Values-based approaches posit that conservation should seek to sustain and enhance heritage significance rather than arrest physical change. A values-based approach is also one where the value-judgements underlying conservation decisions are made explicit. To reflect this, a new treatment documentation format has been developed at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. The documentation procedure shifts the focal point from condition assessments to statements of significance. Within the professional setting, similar new documentation is being developed for light-based artworks at Glasgow Museums. Ultimately, using a value-based treatment report, the conservator can be aware of the reasoning behind treatment choices and be better equipped to make decisions that reflect an object’s values.

Fusing and refreshing the memory: Conserving a Chinese lacquered Buddhist sculpture in London, UK

This paper examines the conservation treatment of a lacquered Buddha sculpture undertaken by a Buddhist conservator as part of a postgraduate heritage conservation training programme in London. This creative process selects from a mixture of ideas and practices as a specific response to the people, time, and place of the conservation treatment. Rather than seen as a polarized choice between versions of ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ approaches, the conservation practice is interpreted though a Buddhist understanding of the sculpture in relation to the secular requirements of the current owner. The treatment addressed issues of the physical stability of the object, the reversibility of applied treatments, and the accommodation of Buddhist concepts of ‘completeness’, ‘toplessness’, and ‘no killing’. The result was a Buddha sculpture made into a ‘plausible’ conservation object that represents the compromises necessary at the time and place of the conservation intervention.