Imaging plays a crucial role as a non-invasive documentation and diagnostic tool informing conservation strategies and research. It helps reveal narratives that objects hold, shedding light on their creators, users, and life histories. By its nature, imaging is multidisciplinary, integrating techniques from various fields, adapting them for conservation and cultural heritage applications, and requiring subject matter experts for interpretation. Successful imaging projects require advanced techniques and demand collaborative efforts to bridge gaps in skills, knowledge, and equipment and address challenges.

This session invites submissions showcasing how interdisciplinary partnerships have navigated these challenges and expanded the possibilities of imaging in conservation.

As imaging spans all specialty areas of conservation, we invite submissions of imaging collaborations that touch on all different media, techniques, and applications; this offers an opportunity to connect imaging throughout the field and continue to develop, share, and learn.

Collaborative partnerships in conservation education have flourished in recent years, offering conservation students exposure to more diverse projects, deeper community engagement, and expanded mentorship. As the practice of working collaboratively within an educational setting becomes even more widespread, it is important to evaluate how to best do so in a way that is both impactful and sustainable. This session will provide space for critical review of these collaborative efforts, with the goal of discussing project goals, what worked well, how partner relationships evolved, and reflection on how collaborative approaches could be improved or enhanced moving forward. The specific needs of collaborations in the context of working with students may be explored, such as power dynamics, financial concerns, academic timelines, and supporting diverse learning styles. Joint contributions from students, faculty, and community partners are encouraged.

Publications on post-disaster cultural heritage recovery tend to group together armed conflict and natural disasters while failing to make the key distinction: hurricanes and earthquakes do not discriminate, armed conflict does. Museums, libraries, and archives are not collateral damage in a warzone—they are the targets of those seeking to erase social, cultural, and historical identities. These institutions do not just house objects and documents, they contain the stories and accomplishments of our global heritage. However, treating material culture that has been deliberately damaged during an armed conflict is a topic of conservation not adequately addressed in existing literature. This leaves conservators at a loss for how to care for and consider the evolving values and histories of war-damaged (or war-affected) objects. Conservation, as a community, constantly strives to learn from and teach those within it, therefore, offering a platform for communication and collaboration can only benefit these specialized objects. This concurrent general session will allow conservation professionals, experienced in caring for war-damaged or -affected material culture, to identify their insights on the most effective treatment approaches while helping others mitigate the perceived failures and pitfalls.

Collaboration is a relational practice encompassing critical elements, such as building trust, recognizing truth, providing access, acknowledging power dynamics, following through, and ultimately preserving what is valued. 

 In the spirit of collaboration, it is vital to operate in service to the collective goal, prioritizing the group’s objectives over individual agendas. Trust serves as the foundation for any collaborative endeavor and is built on consistent and transparent communication, reliability, and mutual respect. Humility, equitable power dynamic among all stakeholders, as well as truth recognition and an understanding of historical facts and present realities are essential. Power dynamics play a significant role in collaboration, balancing power among stakeholders ensures equitable participation. Access to relevant resources and open information sharing ensures well-informed decision making. Commitment follow-through and continuity are critical to maintaining trust, demonstrating reliability and sustainability supporting long-term impact. Preserving what is valued identifies and safeguards core principles, traditions, and goals essential to the collective identity and purpose of the collaboration.

 This session will include an honest discussion with current partners and colleagues to consider the elements of effective collaboration with the goal of contributing to the larger conversation. 

It invites allied professionals, context-based practitioners, and anyone doing field services-type work to present (15-20 mins). This session highlights the impacts of field services approaches to preservation in the broader conservation discipline.

With museums launching initiatives to digitize their archives, discussions have arisen among conservators about their examination and treatment records. The debate tends to revolve around how much information should be included, in what form, and who should have access to it. Another form of documentation that is often part of a conservation dossier are technical images, which are becoming essential tools for scholarship and connoisseurship in the way that photographs once were. With some exceptions, institutions do not systematically make these publicly available in high resolution, even after they have been published. Conservators often share technical images and research materials upon request from a colleague or as part of in-person visits, but there remains a barrier to access that tends to create basic inequity.

Despite the challenges, there have been many recent and successful efforts implementing open access directives, requiring the collaboration and expertise of colleagues in diverse fields including – but not limited to – curators, archivists, web designers, digital/media specialists, grant bodies, and the wider scholarly community. The goal of this session is to invite speakers to discuss their experiences in making conservation records available to the wider community, with examples of present and future strategies, acknowledging that there is a significant time and money involved and a variety of opinions among our colleagues.

Recent shifts in the field of conservation call for a Human-centered approach; one that challenges historical inequitable power structures. Externally, this may look like community-led work and collaboration. Internally, this may manifest as the decentralization of institutionalized power and an exploration of collaborative leadership. 

This session will tell the stories of those working to decentralize the inequitable power structures inherent within the field of conservation—stories that challenge hierarchical leadership models, encourage the democratization of knowledge, and promote the sharing of resources amongst fellow stewards of cultural heritage. This session will hold space for dialogue about what collaborative leadership and community-led practices can look like.

Conservators and conservation-adjacent professionals are encouraged to participate. The session will include a series of talks, followed by a moderated discussion with all presenters. Possible topics may include but are not limited to collaborative leadership models and human resource practices, community-led conservation treatments and programs, and how collaboration both internally and externally can lead to a more holistic conservation future. 

Join us as we journey into this new chapter of conservation and expand our views of what it means to lead in collaboration, not only with each other, but with the communities we are meant to serve.

Chairs: Annabelle Camp, Katie Foggiano, Bianca Garcia, Leticia Gomez Franco, Elizabeth Salmon

As conservation professionals, we are often engaged in supporting institution-wide reinstallations, rehangs, and major capital projects. It currently feels as if we are in the midst of a boom in new construction and building upgrades. Many museum buildings are reaching a critical point in their lifecycle, and the same is often true for their associated infrastructure and amenities (HVACs, plumbing, lighting, and accessibility). Current storage is often old and inadequate, or non-existent. 

Lighting the Way: Museum Illumination Policies

Setting specifications for light-sensitive museum collection items is one of the most collaborative (and potentially contentious) elements of preventive conservation since lighting both guarantees destruction of the light-sensitive material, and also profoundly affects the visitor experience.

This concurrent general session will examine the challenges of assigning collection item lifetimes and setting institutional lighting policies. The session will include both short papers (ten minutes of presentation) and longer papers (twenty minutes of presentation) and will include a discussion panel on creating lighting policies in museums.

Topics of interest include but, again, are not limited to:

• Setting lifetime fading allowances,
• The utility of the ISO and AATCC Blue Wool standards,
• The issue of Just Noticeable Difference.

The session is jointly organized by the Preventive Care Network (PCN), Research and Technical Studies (RATS), and the Microfading Tester International Discussion Group (MFT-IDG). Presentation length should be 20-22 minutes to allow about 8 minutes for questions and discussion.

The conservation community recognizes the urgency of centering environmental sustainability in collections stewardship. We are increasingly aware of the climate crisis, the carbon emissions and costs associated with the preservation of collections, and the threats severe weather events pose to cultural heritage. In our individual practices and institutions, the learning curve for applying environmentally sustainable preventive care methods can be steep. Sharing stories about planning and implementing sustainable practices will help us find new solutions to difficult problems and allows us to lead by example.

While there are no strict guidelines or rules, the recently refreshed Bizot Green Protocol has urged us to promote sustainable solutions for environmental control that are informed by scientific research, predictive models, and new approaches to risk management. A renewed focus on sustainable preventive care by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) that centers on the Bizot protocol has driven many institutions to focus on how they can adopt these guidelines.

These guidelines and others present a wide range of solutions for reducing energy usage while maintaining appropriate preservation environmental parameters for collections. However, discussions about the collaborative work necessary for implementation are sparse within our profession. As we realize sustainable changes, nuanced discussions about how these parameters are applied to varied buildings, collections, and climate zones are vital.

This session invites speakers to share stories about team efforts to enact sustainable solutions for collecting institutions, such as:

• Creating institution-wide commitment and assembling a multidisciplinary team by partnering with registrars, engineers, facilities managers, and contractors.
• Engaging in conversations with other departments to find solutions that balance operations and sustainable environmental conditions for collections.
• Collaborating to define what constitutes success for sustainability initiatives.
• Providing passive solutions for environmental control.
• Presenting resources and guidelines that frame sustainability efforts in your institution, including (but not limited to) commitment to the Bizot protocol and its recent refresh.
• Sharing unexpected obstacles, roadblocks, and systems incompatibility in achieving sustainable results.

We are interested in a range of presentations with potential for panel discussion.

Chairs: Al Carver-Kubik, acarver-kubik@neh.gov, Lisa Goldberg, lgoldberg@lgpreservation.com, and committee members: Sarah Freshnock, Kelly Krish, Laura Gaylord Resch

The Outreach and Education Outreach (K-12) Subcommittees of the AIC Communications Committee propose a concurrent general session on the topic of conservation outreach and community engagement.

Conservation outreach and engagement is inherently collaborative and encompasses a wide range of activities, from writing a blog post to developing a K-12 curriculum. It involves building relationships with anyone from fellow museum professionals to the general public. Outreach and storytelling are essential to the future of the field, but it can seem daunting to begin engaging in this work. This session will highlight both successful case studies and moments of reflection on challenges on topics that include but are not limited to: building diverse audiences and community engagement; creating understanding with museum colleagues and allied professionals; gaining buy-in and/or funding for cultural heritage preservation; political advocacy; K-12 or family programs and intergenerational learning; outreach to artists; and experiences speaking with the media.

We seek presentations from anyone involved in outreach and community engagement work, including from people in private practice, emerging professionals, museum educators and other allied professionals.