Conservation and reception theory

[Dennis Piechota]

Thinking of Sanchita Balachandran's challenge to conservation I wonder if the discussion she started may be carried forward using r

eception t

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heory as a conceptual framework.

In reception theory all media are thought to be actively interpreted by the audience that receives them. Individuals or groups make interpretive choices that allow them to make sense of the new experience. Such interpretations can be seen more or less to fall into three broad categories. Applied to conservators encountering new art and artifacts

 reception theory says that our treatment choices will tend to:

1- support a dominant view;
2- support an oppositional view;

3- support a negotiated view.

1- Clearly our desire to focus on the treatment of an object's materials of construction is meant to remove us from any of these choices. But in practice that approach tends to place us in the role of technicians supporting the dominant users of the past. 

2- We are also a highly self-critical discipline and often choose to correct or undo the actions of past conservators and restorers. These past treatments are a part of the received object heritage and so in this limited sense we engage in oppositional views of the past.

3- And we can all think of times when we have worked to negotiate among users, e.g., when a proposed use of an object is at odds with its preservation. In as much as the resulting compromise broadens or otherwise changes an object's identity we have supported a negotiated view of the past.

So in at least limited ways we have always engaged in treatment and preservation decisions that can be described by the three broad categories of reception theory. The challenge is to make these decisions with a greater awareness of how they support or impair the heritage views of different socio-political groups. Or to put a finer point on it, can conservators apply this framework to heritage preservation in order to further social justice?

Dennis

Dennis Piechota

Archaeological Conservator

Fiske Center for Archaeological Research
UMass Boston
Office: 617-287-6829

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