Cultural Encounters and Explorations: Conservation's 'Catch-22'

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Conservation and collections care are deeply affected by pressures to provide greater access to heritage objects for people now, but at the same time to make sure that objects survive for future users. This highlights a paradox which could be called conservation's 'Catch-22': Access to heritage objects brings social benefit Greater access brings greater social benefit Greater access brings greater damage Greater damage brings reduced social benefitPeople interact with heritage objects in many ways: children are encouraged to handle objects to bring the past to life; museum visitors are eager to see 'the real thing', artists are inspired. Increasingly, encounters with objects are used as triggers for oral history, and are considered to have a restorative function in reconnecting people with their pasts (cultural wellbeing), or in reaching people who are isolated through age, health, social exclusion or sensory impairment (therapeutic wellbeing). However, we know relatively little about the nature of any benefit that may be derived from these encounters, nor do we know enough about the effect on the heritage objects themselves. This has limited our ability to establish effective conservation strategies. The purpose of this research cluster, therefore, will be to explore the issues associated with physical encounters between people and objects. It will examine our understanding of changes to the physical object, our ability to define and measure condition, our conception of deterioration and loss, and the implications for current and future use of collections. This will be balanced by exploration of the social/cultural benefit gained from these encounters. A further purpose will be to explore the impact of remote encounters with digitised objects on the policy, practice and ethics of collections care and management. A key objective is that this research should guide future strategies for heritage conservation.