Conservators as Middle-range Theorists
Dennis Piechota
Thatayaone Segaetsho
Clavir, Miriam
I know I’ve been going on about this for a long time, but let me say, I agree that conservators have a highly specialized, necessary, applied focus –but we are also now considering the intangible as well as the tangible attributes of the collections we work on. Whether we see ourselves as pragmatists or middle-range theorists, I believe it’s important to keep thinking and asking questions about more than physical preservation. And to ask these questions -to discuss what we’re doing –with people outside of the museum and art fields as well as the specialists inside. Here I’m thinking not only of professionals such as engineers, for example, whom we consult if we’re working on an historic structure, but also the originators of the pieces the conservator is working on. This is accepted practice with the conservation of contemporary art, and copyright laws support this. More and more this practice has, as well, become accepted in the conservation of collections from indigenous and world cultures, especially when the museum housing these collections is not in the originating community. The questions we think about are not only on the pragmatic level, they also have to do with considering more broadly what we are preserving, why, and for whom. In Canada, even in the 1980s, certain First Nations cultural values people were trying to make conservators understand included, for instance, that “The objects themselves are not important; what matters is what the objects represent.” Whatever sub-discipline of conservation we’re working in, I hope we’re interested in the profession as a whole, and in differing views on the preservation of material culture.
Conservator Emerita and Research Fellow, MOA, The UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver.
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Dennis Piechota
Dennis Piechota
“The objects themselves are not important; what matters is what the objects represent.”
Clavir, Miriam
“Conservators in private practice can overprotect the physical object – they must protect their businesses as well–and, as more museums hire private conservators rather than have in-house departments, the stringent conditions that these private conservators may feel obliged to stipulate for a loan, for instance, leave little flexibility for the receiving museum to let the originating people be comfortably close to their heritage belongings without breaking the loan conditions.”
