Cultural materials conservation

Notes from a lecture presented at the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, University of Melbourne in 2012 (and in subsequent years) to students in the Masters of Cultural Materials Conservation program. The lecture outlines the context and features of graffiti and street art in Melbourne, its sites and material objects, relationship to formal and informal archives and some key case studies, such as the destruction of artworks by Banksy. It discusses the forms of value that might be attached to graffiti and street art (social, historical and aesthetic) and ends by outlining some of the implications for understanding heritage, including anti-heritage approaches and possible conservation strategies.

Manual de procedimientos para trabajos de limpieza, registro, inventario y embalaje de materiales culturales realizado en el marco del Proyecto Arqueológico Ychsma (Temporada 2012); siendo directores el Dr. Peter Eeckhout y el Lic. Milton Luján.

This paper aims to examine the role of living cultural heritage to materials conservation and restoration of retablos and santos at the National Museum of Fine Arts in the Philippines (NMP) and the Parish Church of La Purísima Concepción in Guiuan. In researching the restoration practices of cultural communities that retablos and santos hold significance to, this paper is framed by textual analysis, and interviews with heritage, ecclesiastic and conservation professionals. With ever-increasing cultural homogenisation, the importance of conservators working towards preventing cultural identities from being absorbed by universal discourses and popular cultures are argued in this paper. In reflecting upon knowledge systems and communication platforms that support conservation, the exchange of knowledge, its usability and wide audience possibilities as necessary pathways to preserving memory for living and future generations will be focused upon.

Proceedings of the Symposium on the Care and Conservation of Middle Eastern Manuscripts The Melbourne Journal of Technical Studies in Art, 26-28 November 2007, Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, The University of Melbourne, pp. 87-93
When Prof. John Bowman developed the Middle Eastern Manuscript Collection for the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Melbourne, his focus was the language and the meaning of the texts, rather than the information encapsulated in the material and methods of manufacture. Nevertheless this extraordinary collection of Qur'ans and related texts, books of poetry, astrology, grammar, mathematics, logic dictionaries, prayer books, biographies and books of sayings which include Arabic and Persian manuscripts as well as several Syriac, Urdu, Ethiopic, Sanskrit and Turkish texts presents a wealth of information about the production of such manuscripts. When the collection was assessed for conservation and preservation requirements a study was also undertaken of the materials and techniques of the texts. This included macro, micro, and nano investigation; and in this respect Raman spectroscopy has proved to be a useful tool by which to analyze pigments are used in the illuminated texts, as it provides a non-invasive analytical technique. This paper provides an overview of the materials and techniques investigation of this collection, undertaken as part of the preservation program, and characterizes some of the pigments used in the production of these volumes. It discusses the issues that arose during the analysis and identifies further areas of investigation.

The objective of this paper is the presentation of the research strategies adopted and results of the ongoing BIONANOSCULP research project that is aiming to develop solutions in the area of sustainable nanomaterials, which are non-invasive and high-performance in their preventive conservation approach.

An integrated methodology was designed as a holistic strategy to the characterisation of the microbiota present on the surface of public outdoor sculptures. Gathering objective data in the characterization of the surface microbiota of public outdoor sculptures is important, in order to design strategies for the preventive conservation of these objects that make use of biotechnology innovative coatings. Such is one of the objectives of the project BIONANOSCULP. Methodologies applied include conservation reports, surface sampling methodologies using gels, 3D modeling, SEM, flow cytometry and metagenomics.

The project is already significantly contributing to create a bridge between the experts from different areas: the skills of biotechnologists, microbiologists, materials scientists, art historians and conservators-restorers to assess the state of conservation, biodeterioration and biocontamination of a selected number of sculptures, and to design the appropriate materials to pursue preventive conservation through coatings with anti-microbial activities.

Abstract
Bark paintings form a significant part of collections, both public and private, in Australia and overseas. They are significant historically, culturally and aesthetically. For conservators they also present significant conservation issues. At present there is a relatively small body of literature available that deals with their materials and techniques, mechanisms of degradation and the ethical issues surrounding their conservation. This paper examines the use of orchid juice, as one of the most common natural binder used in bark paintings throughout Arnhem Land and the surrounding islands. It describes the botany of orchids that have been identified as being used in the production of bark paintings; examines accounts of bark painting production using orchid juice; and assesses methods appropriate for the analysis of orchid juice binders.

Over more than six decades, French-born Australian artist Mirka Mora has been exploring many materials and techniques, combining them in innovative ways to create a personal and instantly recognizable style. A major figure in Melbourne’s social and artistic history, Mora (now aged 88) moved to Australia after narrowly escaping deportation at age 13. She and her husband lived within a circle of modernist artists who gathered in the couple’s studio/gallery and restaurants throughout the 1950s and 60s, and were actively engaged in circulating ideas and artistic materials amongst themselves with an open mind for new techniques.
This paper explores Mora’s painted soft sculptures production, a hybrid process mixing textile and oil painting traditional techniques together with a fantastic iconography inspired from bestiaries, myths and childhood.
The methods of research combine analysis of sources, observation of works in progress and technical reconstructions of sculptures with oral history and regular feedback from the artist. Private diaries, newspaper clippings, audiovisual material, catalogues and books (including Mora’s autobiography) are reviewed from the perspective of technical art history. 
Reconstructions of soft sculptures, a ‘free’ version of replicas, have been refined with the artist’s input in a process inspired by participatory ethnography. The same method was used for illustrated workbooks that compiled visual information, photographical details and written questions, and were regularly updated during consultations with the artist. These methods provided a wealth of technical information.
This research uncovers Mora’s creative process and its relationships with the historic contexts of the craft movement, feminism and community art. Mora’s techniques reflect her self-taught classical knowledge, acquired through extensive reading of art history and painters’ writings, as well as the study of art in public galleries. At a time of serious questioning of traditional techniques by modernists artists, Mora chose to explore the past, craving for a solid historic foundation. However, by giving her personal twist to classic painting and textile methods, she made her artworks quite unique and anchored in their period. Moreover, Mora’s materials actively mediated her interactions with the public, during her long practice of soft sculptures workshops, where she shared simplified versions of her techniques with Australians of all ages. 
Sources show that gender-connoted materials and processes have influenced the critical perception of Mora’s work, especially in the isolated and conservative Australian art scene of the 60s.  Other senior women artists working with textile shared that predicament, underlining the essential role played by materials and their meaning at the rise of modernity. Now that ‘feminine’ techniques have widely permeated the art world, and that Mora has stopped her textile artworks to do only painting, less attention might be devoted to the historic specificities of this mode of making; therefore this study of Mora’s materials and interpretation of their significance in the early times of her career provides new knowledge that will greatly assist future conservation practice.

A preventative conservation grant project was undertaken by a student and two graduates from the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation (GCCMC) at The University of Melbourne, in collaboration with Museum Seni Rupa dan Keramik (MSRK) to monitor, document and understand common concerns for paintings and paper collections in Southeast Asian climates - specifically in Jakarta, Indonesia.

This presentation will provide some background information into the Donald Thomson collection, referencing the Ancestral Power and the Aesthetic exhibition and introducing the bark paintings which are the focus of this project. I will present the support of Museum Victoria followed by the aim of conservation and guiding ethics. The presentation will then focus briefly on conservation community consultations and the work of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. We will then turn our attentions to the details of this project, including the condition and proposed treatment of bark paintings DT46 and 47. We will explore the dialogue between curator, conservator and traditional owners which explored the challenges of conventional conservation practice. Finally I will talk about the effectiveness our approach in ensuring cultural integrity and the preservation of Indigenous cultural patrimony in museums.

This paper seeks to reframe the ways in which the future of the conservation profession is perceived. Maintaining that it is issues of access and preservation as established in the 1975 Pigott Report that remain primary concerns for conservation, the paper explores the kinds of evidence-based research useful in determining potential conservation futures. Using the 1995 National Conservation and Preservation Policy for Movable Cultural Heritage as a point of reference, and rejecting the centralized model of institutional dependence as no longer being essential to the growth of the conservation profession, an articulated series of sector-focused Green Papers is proposed as a way of reconfiguring key questions about conservation, and in order to provide metrics relating to location, responsibility, significance, risk and efficacy. The findings can then be compiled as content for a broader White Paper that engages with a critical response to risks to the survival of Australia's cultural material.

The subject of this presentation is conservation of a rare Māori rain cloak made from the leaves of the mountain daisy, Celmisia (tikumu) and fibres of Phormium tenax (harakeke). It was donated to the Economic Botany Collection (EBC), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK in 1858 by Walter Mantell (1820-1895), who worked as a land surveyor and land purchaser on the South Island of New Zealand on behalf of the British government (1848-1855). The cloak was displayed until 1993 in the former Museum at Kew (Desmond 2007), with the primary aim of demonstrating the uses of the daisy family (Compositae), its significance as Maori heritage was not acknowledged. Conservation research, initiated by Nesbitt, undertaken by Dovgan Nurse (2008) and supervised by Eastop, aimed at preservation of the cloak’s physical and conceptual integrity as a taonga Māori and led to a dialogue between the EBC and the London-based Māori community, Ngati Ranana, and historians, museum professionals and weavers in New Zealand and the UK. The presentation will discuss the authors' approach to the cloak’s conservation, and research methods and outcomes. This research has provided a way for communities in the UK and New Zealand to share the cloak in new ways, perhaps serving as an example of the decolonisation of collections and conservation (Sully, 2007).


References
Desmond, R. 2007. The history of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. London : Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Dovgan Nurse, L. 2008. Conservation of a rare Maori cloak made from the leaves of Celmisia and fibres of Phormium tenax: Maori taonga in the context of the Economic Botany Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Unpublished MA dissertation, Textile Conservation Centre, University of Southampton, 214pp.
Sully, D. ed. 2007. Decolonising Conservation Caring for Maori Meeting Houses outside of New Zealand. Walnut Greek, USA: Left Coast Press.