News and Events

Arts Tune-Up: Preservation Tips for Artists

(October 21-23, 2020)

Join us in conversation with professional art conservators from across the field as they share their knowledge about how to plan for the long-term care of your artwork in a variety of contexts. Over seven different sessions, presenters will cover both general and specific information and best practices that will help you mitigate risks while maintaining your original artistic intent. 
LaStarsha McGarity will present about choosing materials, Shannon will present about the collaborative process between artists and conservators, and Nylah Byrd will present about proper storage, handling, and transporting artworks with Magdalena Solano. 

https://www.lacountyarts.org/calendar/arts-tune-materials-conservation

Exploring the Conservation Ethics of Contested Monuments

(October 26, 2020)

The controversy surrounding Confederate statues and other contested monuments that celebrate slave owners, imperialism, and white settler colonialism have been highlighted in recent months. Although activists have advocated for the removal of these monuments for years, the racial unrest this summer has brought these issues to the forefront of the cultural heritage sector and greater society as community activists empower themselves to take down such monuments all over the world. This has caused conflicted feelings in some conservators who want to support racial justice in public spaces, but who have been traditionally taught to always prioritize the preservation of outdoor sculpture and monuments. Conservators may also be conflicted if their employers task them with the care of contested monuments, calling professional ethics into question. At the crux of the matter are questions surrounding who is valued in our society and who gets to make decisions in regard to public spaces and the interpretation of history. Competing values surrounding the removal of contested monuments will be explored with panelists including artists, historians, and preservation professionals.

Sponsored by FAIC, the AIC Equity & Inclusion Committee, and Emerging Conservation Professionals Network

Watch the webinar here

Moderators

Nylah Byrd

Laleña Vellanoweth

Speakers

Dr. Renée Ater

Brent Leggs

Ada Pinkston

Decolonizing Collections and Prioritizing Community Partnerships

(December 7, 2020 1pm PST/4pm EST)

Calls to decolonize collections and partner with communities have gained momentum in recent years. Decolonizing would mean transforming the way we view and interact with collections and people, de-centering white colonizer perspectives, and addressing the traumatic histories that have led to our existing systems. The current racial justice movement has made the need to be inclusive and to partner with communities even more clear. What would it look like if we rejected conservation’s traditional top-down approach and instead shared authority with Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color? This session will examine the need to dismantle our problematic foundations and discuss how we can enrich our work through partnerships with others. Click here to redirect to the registration link.

Moderators

Héctor J. Berdecía-Hernández, Amy Tjiong

Panelists

Brandie Macdonald, Melanie Adams, Joel Garcia

Conservation is Not Neutral: Emotion and Bias in our Work

(February, 2021)

Traditional models of conservation have taught us to attempt to maintain scientific objectivity at all times. However, in reality what has historically been called “objectivity” is actually just the continuation of the majority perspective, which was enshrined as ‘objective fact’ by scientific theories that went hand in hand with colonial subjugation of non-white people. As our job is to aid in the preservation of history, perhaps we should not try to eliminate feelings from our handling of emotionally significant artifacts, even when those artifacts do not emotionally
resonate with us personally. This session will explore the principle of neutrality in conservation and discuss how bias contributes to inequity in our field.

Moderators

LaStarsha McGarity

Anita Dey

Speakers

TBD