This conference will be a fantastic opportunity to network with fellow ACRs in-person, hear some fascinating papers, and discuss some key topics affecting the conservation sector today.
Each ticket includes lunch and refreshments
Our theme this year is "To Have And To Hold", where we'll look at the trials and tribuations of 'holding it all together' - both tangible and intangible heritage objects, but also ourselves as conservators.
As Conservator-Restorers we safeguard heritage for future generations to enjoy. However, when it comes to both ‘having’ and ‘holding’ objects, there can be tricky ethical minefields to navigate. How do we balance the needs and wants of different stakeholder groups? How do we weigh the benefits of access versus risk of damage? How do we look after vast collections on little resource? In an increasingly pressured environment how do we, as conservators, ‘hold it all together’?
In this year’s conference we discuss the following themes:
Dynamic Wonders
How do we both ‘have and hold’ dynamic objects if keeping them in working order creates the risk of wear and tear? Does a dynamic object lose its meaning and significance when it no longer functions?
The Ethics of Touch
How should one manage the issue of public access to an object or site? Does
the general public have a right to physically engage with its cultural
heritage, or should physical contact be limited to minimize risk? When is ‘no touching’ the wrong outcome for heritage?
Delicate Interventions
As conservators, how do you hold it all together when the heritage you are treating is literally falling apart in your hands? How do care for exceptionally fragile objects when every possible option results in high levels of risk?
Packing and Presenting
What are the challenges of storing large collections with minimal resources to care for them? How do you tackle unconventional objects that require problem-solving approaches to have and hold them to best effect?
We’re asking the tricky questions, make sure you are part of the conversation!
Join us in the beautiful Art Worker’s Guild and celebrate being part of one of the finest communities of Conservator-Restorers in the world!
Places are limited so book now!
ACR Conference 2023
What do we do when a working mechanical object like a clock or automaton is so fragile that to run it is to risk irreversible damage, or so unique that the interventions required to make it functional are considered unethical? How do we deal with objects where movement is a great part of significance, but we don’t dare make it move? How can we keep functional heritage engaging and relevant, if we can’t have it functioning? Can recordings and animations be enough, and if not, what then do we do? This presentation seeks to explore these questions through the lens of two singular case studies – The Bowes Swan Automaton, and the Society of Antiquaries’ Falling Globe Clock. It argues that for functioning objects digital representations are not enough, and asks what other avenues we can explore, and whether we need to take a more pragmatic approach to their conservation.
As a dedicated archive conservator working at The National Archives for 21 years, I have developed the ongoing ‘High Use Document Project’. Usage data has been collected from several sources to create an ongoing monitoring programme, where treatments are amongst the essential upkeep required to maintain this public collection. It must be kept as an accessible usable one despite ‘usage’ causing documents and volumes to severely fall apart. Treatment options are explored and carried out, re-housing if necessary. Further continual high use, necessitates recalls and re-checking some of the vulnerable documents, targeting additional pages and implementing careful handling options. As well as showing examples of before and after treatments I would like to highlight some of the high use document’s journeys and explore different ideas to keep the archives alive, usable, and protected. I would like to show examples of a selection of highly used original wartime propaganda artworks used by our education team. Trying out different ideas of housing and considering the pros and cons of ‘to touch’ or ‘not to touch’ these ‘working’ documents.
In preparation for opening the new TT Motorsport Gallery at the Manx Museum, the conservation team were tasked with the mounting of a ‘Promo Girl’ dress. This fell outside the budget for conservation by specialists. So it came to our social history curator, objects conservator and paper conservator. The material of this dress, a stretch polyester blend, made it very difficult to handle. It required a very smooth mount as there was nowhere to hide. In addition, it was outside of our usual areas of expertise and it was going to be on open display. As a conservation team, we thought carefully about how this dress should look on display. The idea of promo models is a controversial subject, we had our own personal feelings and biases about it. How do we present this dress? Should we recreate the glamour model shape? Being of a provocative nature and on open display, was it more at risk of being touched by the public? Through many practical challenges, whilst not letting our personal views get in the way, we came up with a method of creating the mount using a cast of our colleague’s body. This provoked ethical discussions about female representation and what ‘shape’ is acceptable as a promo model.
Ipswich Museum closed its doors last year and began packing away its displays and stores. The budget , put together by others, was no where near enough for the job. Materials, and staffing had not bere taken into account . Consequently a small team of visitor services staff and the conservator had to find innovative ways of safely packing and moving the displays of archaeology, herbaria, geology flints and natural history. Cheap alternatives to expensive materials were sourced and all displays re-cycled for packing the objects. New stores were created off site and racked out. Specialist movers were brought in for heavy objects such as flints and many larger objects such as a giraffe, gorillas, mammoth and whales skull have been protected in situ. The paper will show how cheaper materials were and had to be used to keep costs to a minimum. The whole process took 7 months.
9:30am – 10:30am – Welcome and Introduction
Doors open from 9:30am
10:10 - Introduction with Juergen Vervoorst FIIC ACR
10:10 - Introduction with Juergen Vervoorst FIIC ACR
10:30 – 11:40 - Dynamic Wonders
Function Over Form - Managing Change in Dynamic Objects
Dale Sardeson ACR
What do we do when a working mechanical object like a clock or automaton is so fragile that to run it is to risk irreversible damage, or so unique that the interventions required to make it functional are considered unethical? How do we deal with objects where movement is a great part of significance, but we don’t dare make it move? How can we keep functional heritage engaging and relevant, if we can’t have it functioning? Can recordings and animations be enough, and if not, what then do we do? This presentation seeks to explore these questions through the lens of two singular case studies – The Bowes Swan Automaton, and the Society of Antiquaries’ Falling Globe Clock. It argues that for functioning objects digital representations are not enough, and asks what other avenues we can explore, and whether we need to take a more pragmatic approach to their conservation.
"The Show Must Go On" – Working With Kinetic Artworks by Hamad Butt, Takis, and Donald Rodney at Tate Britain
Kinetic works have their own ‘personality’ and challenges due to the bespoke nature of manufacture, by artists and the specialists they find to work with at inception, leading to subtle changes and regular maintenance to keep the artworks running. A combination of conservators, senior technicians, electrical specialists and artist estates collaborated on the following works currently on display at Tate Britain: 'Transmission' by Hamad Butt consists of nine fly-catcher UV bulbs within glass books laid out in a circle. Several elements and display information were missing and needed to be sourced and discussed with the artist’s estate. 'Télélumière Relief No. 5' by Takis contains a mercury rectifier. There were several conversations relating to the balance of showing a work that contains an obsolete bulb and the health & safety of vaporized mercury. 'Visceral Canker' by Donald Rodney, the most challenging, is a wall-based work that originally pumped the artist’s blood around two heraldic panels highlighting slavery and monarchy. Now using fake blood with tubing, drip bags that need regular replacement and a peristaltic pump that has ceased to be manufactured, it presents a new challenge in keeping the historic elements working, while allowing modifications to keep the artwork live.
11:20 – 11:40 – Q&As
12:00 – 12:50 - The Ethics of Touch
Slippery Slopes and Grey Areas for Touching Collections
Professor Jane Henderson ACR
Dr Ashley Lingle ACR
Conservators have a complex relationship with touching things, and as a profession as we look to build more inclusive and diverse practices, this relationship with touch needs to be restructured. By examining issues surrounding who conservation is for, how conservators discuss touch and the criteria used to define access, this talk will invite those in the conservation and collection care to be more open to the benefits of touch in a contextually appropriate manner. In other words, there should be more of a grey area when it comes to touch.
“Many hands make Conservators work" - Managing High Use at the National Archives
Helen Mayor ACR
As a dedicated archive conservator working at The National Archives for 21 years, I have developed the ongoing ‘High Use Document Project’. Usage data has been collected from several sources to create an ongoing monitoring programme, where treatments are amongst the essential upkeep required to maintain this public collection. It must be kept as an accessible usable one despite ‘usage’ causing documents and volumes to severely fall apart. Treatment options are explored and carried out, re-housing if necessary. Further continual high use, necessitates recalls and re-checking some of the vulnerable documents, targeting additional pages and implementing careful handling options. As well as showing examples of before and after treatments I would like to highlight some of the high use document’s journeys and explore different ideas to keep the archives alive, usable, and protected. I would like to show examples of a selection of highly used original wartime propaganda artworks used by our education team. Trying out different ideas of housing and considering the pros and cons of ‘to touch’ or ‘not to touch’ these ‘working’ documents.
12:50 – 13:10 – Q&A
14:10 – 15:20 - Delicate Interventions
Cupid: Artistic Intention and Conservation-Intervention
Jenny Williamson ACR
A selectively cleaned oil painting, was installed alongside a series of photographs for an exhibition at Glynn Vivian, Swansea. The partial restoration was undertaken as a conservation-intervention following discussions between the artist Sophy Rickett and painting conservator Jenny Williamson. In this paper Williamson will share thoughts on the methodology of the conservation-intervention that mirrors, reflects, and represents the similarities as well as some of the tensions, between the distinct, but related, fields of fine art practice and conservation. The role of artists’ original intention, truth, meaning, aesthetics and ethics in the field of conservation is considered, and whether subjective processes are part of more objective, scientific ones is explored. The subjectivity, contingency and to an extent, arbitrariness that is a feature of much conservation practice is highlighted. To conclude the ‘conservation-intervention’ is proposed as a replicable strategy – a methodological approach to public engagement and conservation practice that could provide space for an institution to activate new interpretations and understandings of objects in their collection, to reveal the hidden labour of the conservator, and to participate in and advance debates around institutional responsibility, culpability and ethics.
Fragile Framing: Using Non-Original Materials in the Conservation of a Fragile Plaster Frame
Claire Ridley ACR
This paper will outline the conservation treatment of a picture frame belonging to Manchester University Library. The plaster frame, dating to the late 19th to early 20th century was damaged whilst in storage. Challenges to the conservation treatment involved the inherent weaknesses of original materials applied during manufacture and later water damage. The weight of sections of ornament, in relation to size, was significant. Limited contact points along with the deterioration of metal fixings resulted in considerable historic losses. Water damage was evident from the flood in the store. The largest section of plaster loss measured approximately 500mm. The large-scale ornamentation consisted of foliage, fruits, vegetables, and birds which had no obvious pattern repeat, and made replication more complex. The decision-making process regarding the selection of materials for conservation will be explored to justify how and why the approach was taken to use non-original materials. Materials used included Paraloid B72, glass micro-balloons, Flugger acrylic putty, West System Epoxy, balsa wood, fish glue and Golden Fluid Acrylics. The decision-making principles focused on issues such as reversibility, the object’s weight, the strength of adhesive bonds and the longevity of the repairs. Keywords: Plaster, non-original materials, decision-making, ethics, mould-making, reversibility.
15:00 – 15:20 – Q&A
15:40 – 16:50 - Packing and Presenting
Skirting Controversy: Presenting a ‘Promo Girl’ Dress
Emma Le Cornu ACR
In preparation for opening the new TT Motorsport Gallery at the Manx Museum, the conservation team were tasked with the mounting of a ‘Promo Girl’ dress. This fell outside the budget for conservation by specialists. So it came to our social history curator, objects conservator and paper conservator. The material of this dress, a stretch polyester blend, made it very difficult to handle. It required a very smooth mount as there was nowhere to hide. In addition, it was outside of our usual areas of expertise and it was going to be on open display. As a conservation team, we thought carefully about how this dress should look on display. The idea of promo models is a controversial subject, we had our own personal feelings and biases about it. How do we present this dress? Should we recreate the glamour model shape? Being of a provocative nature and on open display, was it more at risk of being touched by the public? Through many practical challenges, whilst not letting our personal views get in the way, we came up with a method of creating the mount using a cast of our colleague’s body. This provoked ethical discussions about female representation and what ‘shape’ is acceptable as a promo model.
Packing It Up – An Ipswich Museum Move
Robert Entwistle ACR
Carrie Calver
Ipswich Museum closed its doors last year and began packing away its displays and stores. The budget , put together by others, was no where near enough for the job. Materials, and staffing had not bere taken into account . Consequently a small team of visitor services staff and the conservator had to find innovative ways of safely packing and moving the displays of archaeology, herbaria, geology flints and natural history. Cheap alternatives to expensive materials were sourced and all displays re-cycled for packing the objects. New stores were created off site and racked out. Specialist movers were brought in for heavy objects such as flints and many larger objects such as a giraffe, gorillas, mammoth and whales skull have been protected in situ. The paper will show how cheaper materials were and had to be used to keep costs to a minimum. The whole process took 7 months.
16:00 – 16:50 – Q&A
Dale Sardeson ACR
Professor Jane Henderson ACR
Dr Ashley Lingle ACR
Helen Mayor ACR
Jenny Williamson ACR
Emma Le Cornu ACR
Deborah Cane ACR
Gates Sofer ACR
