Saved for the Nation
The Cultural Value of Conservation
Working with the Textile Conservation Centre at Southampton University, we are working to raise awareness of this pressing agenda, and stimulate deeper thought about the role of conservation amongst policymakers, cultural professionals and within the sector itself.
- Protecting the Lord Protector We're currently doing some work on heritage conservation and the importance of caring for the material world.Two of the core themes will be the symbolic importance of conservation, and the opportunities for engageing people in caring for different heritage and cultural forms and the implications that has for identity.With this in mind, it was interesting to see the work currently being done to clean and restore the statue of Oliver Cromwell on Cromwell Green in front of the Houses of... continue reading on 20th August 2008
- Social Capital and the Material World Last week, I spoke at a summit on Conservation Education convened by the Textile Conservation Centre. I presented the interim thinking from our project, Saved for the Nation.I've put the speech and the presentation I gave on the website. They outline one of the ideas we are developing in the project, which is about the symbolism of caring for the material world, and what it means in relation to wider agenda, from identity and communities, to building cultural literacy. continue reading on 20th June 2008
- Caring for the Material World Simon Jenkins wrote an article in Good Friday's Guardian in which he made the case that 'the dazzling walls of medieval England deserve a bold restorer'. It's good to see conservation getting coverage. As discussion of identity intensifies, culture and heritage are increasingly being looked to as sources for that identity, and points around which we can commune. However, what is often forgotten in this debate is that much of that culture and heritage exists only because it is cared... continue reading on 25th March 2008
- Future in the Scales Conservation tends only to figure in the media, and hence the public imagination, when individual cases throw the spotlight on the restorative skill of conservators. The Qing vases at the Fitzwilliam Museum provide a good example. Today, this example of how to restore a Stradivarius violin after it had been crushed figured on the BBC's homepage, no less.The point about conservation, however, is that much of it focuses on preventive work - 'how do you stop vases getting smashed' etc. -... continue reading on 14th February 2008