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Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| 1The Getty Conservation Institute
Conservat ion
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Q
The GettyConservationInstituteNewsletter
Volume 24, Number 1, 2009
Front cover:Instructors and participantsin a May 2008 site management workshopat Dougga, an ancient-Roman WorldHeritage site in Tunisia. The workshopwas organized by the GCI and TunisiasInstitut National du Patrimoine. Photo:Christian De Brer, GCI.
This publication was printed
on Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
certifed recycled paper
with vegetable-based inks
at a acility using wind power.
A donation to the American Forests
ReLea program has been made
by the Green Print Alliance
on behal o the GCI,
or its use o FSC-certifed paper.
The J. Paul Getty Trust
James Wood President and Chie Executive Ofcer
The Getty Conservation Institute
Timothy P. Whalen Director
Jeanne Marie Teutonico Associate Director, Programs
Kathleen Gaines Associate Director, AdministrationJemima Rellie Assistant Director, Communications and Inormation Resources
Kathleen Dardes Head o Education
Giacomo Chiari Chie ScientistSusan Macdonald Head o Field Projects
Conservation, The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter
Jerey Levin Editor
Angela Escobar Assistant Editor
Joe Molloy Graphic Designer
Color West Lithography Inc. Lithography
The Getty Conservation Institute works internationally to advance
conservation practice in the visual artsbroadly interpreted to include
objects, collections, architecture, and sites. The Institute serves the
conservation community through scientifc research, education and training,
model feld projects, and the dissemination o the results o both its own work
and the work o others in the feld. In all its endeavors, the GCI ocuses on the
creation and delivery o knowledge that will beneft the proessionals and
organizations responsible or the conservation o the worlds cultural heritage.
The GCI is a program o the J. Paul Getty Trust, an international cultural
and philanthropic institution that ocuses on the visual arts in all their
dimensions, recognizing their capacity to inspire and strengthen humanistic
values. The Getty serves both the general public and a wide range oproessional communities in Los Angeles and throughout the world.
Through the work o the our Getty programsthe Museum, Research
Institute, Conservation Institute, and Foundationthe Getty aims to urther
knowledge and nurture critical seeing through the growth and presentation
o its collections and by advancing the understanding and preservation
o the worlds artistic heritage. The Getty pursues this mission with the convic-
tion that cultural awareness, creativity, and aesthetic enjoyment are essential
to a vital and civil society.
Conservation, The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter,is distributed
ree o charge three times per year, to proessionals in conservation and
related felds and to members o the public concerned about conservation.
Back issues o the newsletter, as well as additional inormation regarding
the activities o the GCI, can be ound in the Conservation section o the
Gettys Web site. www.getty.edu/conservation/
The Getty Conservation Institute
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 700Los Angeles, CA 90049-1684 USA
Tel 310 440 7325
Fax 310 440 7702
2009 J. Paul Getty Trust
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Cert no. SCS-COC-001309
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C
o
nt
ents
Introduction 4 A Note from the Director
By Timothy P. Whalen
Feature 5 Conservation Education at the GCI Past, Present, and Future
By Kathleen Dardes
To serve the expanding learning needs o conservation, the gci, in the early part o this
decade, began laying the oundations or a department ocused exclusively on education
and training. Today the gciEducation department not only undertakes initiatives in areaswhere the Institute has expertise but also applies innovations in teaching to those initiatives.
Dialogue 10 Out in the Field A Discussion about Education and GCI Field Projects
Neville Agnew, gci senior principal project specialist; Francesca Piqu, ormer gci project
specialist; and Thomas Roby,gci senior project specialist, talk with Kathleen Dardes, head
ogciEducation, and Jeffrey Levin, editor oConservation, The GCI Newsletter.
News in 16 Advancing Photograph Conservation A New Initiative in Central,
Conservation Southern, and Eastern Europe
By Sean Charette
The gci has partnered with the Academy o Fine Art and Design and the Slovak National
Library in Slovakia to advance photograph conservation in the region through an education
initiative. This multiyear effort includes providing theoretical and practical knowledge o
photograph conservation through a series o summer schools and distance learning.
18 Sustaining Conservation Education in Southeast Asia
By Jeff Cody and Kecia Fong
In 2008 twenty-ve conservation proessionals rom Southeast Asia participated in a
workshop organized by the gci, the Lao pdrs Ministry o Inormation and Culture, the
Lerici Foundation, and seameo-spafa. Held at the World Heritage site o Vat Phou, the
workshop ocused on conservation o archaeological sites and was the inaugural event othe gcis Built Heritage in Southeast Asia Conservation Education and Training Initiative.
20 Cracked, Warped, and Cradled! Training in the Structural Conservation
of Panel Paintings
By Foekje Boersma and Sue Ann Chui
To address the pressing training needs in the structural conservation o panel paintings, the
Getty Museum, the Getty Foundation, and the gci have embarked on a multiyear initiative
that seeks to increase knowledge regarding conservation problems and solutions related to
panel paintings, as well as to increase the number o expert conservators.
22 Out of the Box and Thinking The GCI Conservation Guest
Scholar Program
By Kristin Kelly
The gcis Conservation Guest Scholar program is a rare opportunity in the conservation
eld or senior proessionals to pursue research and innovative thinking. The program
offers conservation proessionals an opportunity to step away rom their daily routines,
providing them with the time and resources to research and write in their elds o expertise.
GCI News 24 Projects, Events, and Publications
Updates on Getty Conservation Institute projects, events, and publications.
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4 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| Feature
A Note from the Director
By Timothy P. Whalen
This edition of Conservation, The GCI Newsletterhighlights education and training at the gci.
Education has always been a core activity o the Institute, as it is an important means to advance the practice
o conservation and, with it, the proessionalism o the eld itsel. The Institute has pursued a range o
educational activities over the years, rom courses and workshops to eld-based activities that allow a direct
exchange o new inormation and ideas with other colleagues.
There is a large audience o conservation proessionals who, like proessionals in other disciplines,
need opportunities to increase their own learning in pace with the advances o the eld. In the conservation
eld, there are relatively ew providers o midcareer training or proessionals on either the national or
international level. For this reason, we decided that the Institute should serve the learning needs o the
eld through a department dedicated to the design and implementation o education and training projects
or proessionals.
So it was that in October 2007gci Education became a reestanding department within the Institute.
The work o the Education department, like that o the Institute itsel, addresses both built heritage and
collections. Its programswhich refect both the needs o the eld and the gcis own areas o expertise
are international, generally ocusing on countries or regions o the world where proessionals may be
underserved by the existing cadre o educational providers. In coming years, we expect to offer more
courses that draw upon the research undertaken at the gci; this will allow us to expand our audience as webring new technical developments rom our labs into conservation practice. The Education department will
also take a leadership role in investigating new methods and media or teaching and learning, bringing in
new ideas rom the mainstream o education to the teaching o conservation.
We have always operated under the premise that education initiatives are among the most effective
means the gci has o contributing to the development o the conservation proession. With this edition o
our newsletter, we are pleased to give you a glimpse into the thinking behind this important part o our work.
A nal note: the next edition o the gci newsletter will be published in October o this year with a new
design and a new nameConservation Perspectives: The GCI Newsletter. The newsletter will now appear
twice a year, in the spring and in the all. While the publication remains ree, subscribers need to complete
and return the subscription renewal orm they received earlier this year in order to continue receiving the
publication. I you are currently a subscriber and have misplaced your renewal orm, you can resubscribe
online at www.getty.edu/conservation/subscribe/. We also invite you to subscribe online to the new GCI
Bulletina ree, bimonthly e-bulletin with the latest inormation on gci projects, activities, and publications.
To sign up, please go to www.getty.edu/conservation and click on the GCI Bulletin link.
We hope that you nd this editionand uture editionso the newsletter to be helpul in illuminat-
ing the variety o issues acing the conservation eld.
4 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| A Note rom the Director
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Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| Feature 5
As Tim Whalen explained in his introduction to this
edition o the newsletter, Education became a reestanding depart-
ment within the Getty Conservation Institute in October 2007.
While the department itsel is relatively new, gci involvement in
education goes back a long wayin act, to the earliest days o the
Institute itsel. For more than a decade, the gcis Training Programoffered an ongoing series o short courses and workshops addressing
a range o topics that dealt both with built heritage and with
museum collections. The gci has also continued a long-standing
tradition o incorporating training into its eld projects, tailoring
efforts to the learning needs o specic groups o proessionals
within the countries or regions where our work occurs (see Dia-
logue, p. 10). The educational activities o some o the Institutes
eld projects have produced didactic resources that can potentially
be much more broadly used in other teaching contextsa recent
example being Technician Training for the Maintenance ofIn Situ
Mosaics (2008), published by the gci and the Institut National du
Patrimoine o Tunisia. This compilation o materials was developed
over the course o several teaching campaigns in Tunisia.
While these eld-based training activities have been successul,
the need or education and training in a number o other areas
(both thematic and geographic) has increased over the years,
refecting the rapid growth o the conservation eld itsel and,
with it, the expansion o its body o knowledge. Advances in
research have yielded better understanding o materials and their
mechanisms o deterioration, and these developments have pro-
duced innovations in preventive and interventive treatments.
New specialty areas have emerged to address the preservation
requirements o contemporary and nontraditional materials, media,
and technologies. While conservation was once viewed as a largely
technical eld, conservation proessionals now must be alert to the
cultural, spiritual, economic, and other values inherent in heritage
values that may play a role in their decision making. In short,
conservations knowledge base is not just increasingit is changing.
Conservation Educationat the GCIPast, Present, and Future
By Kathleen Dardes
GCI senior project specialist Thomas Roby workingwith two participants rom the Mosaics In Situstechnician training program at the site o Dougga,Tunisia. Photo:Aurora Ortega de Torre, GCI.
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6 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| Feature
or teaching and learning, or collaboration and networking, and
or building a strong community o practice among proessionals.
One o our priorities as a department is to research and apply
innovations in teaching and learning to the gcis educational work,
adapting them to the working contexts o the participants o our
projects. However, a undamental rst step in exploring pedagogy isto refect upon the learning process itsel, especially as experienced
by adults, to understand better the motivation or and uses o
learning by proessionals. In other wordswhy do people learn,
how do they learn, where do they learn, and how do they apply
learning in their proessional lives?
How Professionals Learn
Education, especially or the proessions, is a process that involves
more than learning about a topic. Its about learning to become a
proessional, equipped with the expertise and the ethos to unction
within a community o peers. The act that proessionals in a given
eld possess certain traits in common may have less to do with the
content o the ormal instruction they received than with how,
through ensuing experience, they learn to unction within a proes-
sional community whose members share the same values, knowl-
edge, skills, code o conduct, and language. Proessionals get their
start in the classroom, but they become ully ormed by the work-
place, whatever it may be. We learn rst rom teachers and ellow
students, and later rom colleagues, mentors, and supervisors.
A tenet o ormal education, particularly or the proessions,
is that it prepares the way or lielong learning. The concept o
lielong learning emerged rom the infuential report Learning to Be
by Edgar Faure and colleagues (unesco, 1972), which dened
education as a process that extends well beyond traditional academic
settings. The Faure report was also the rst to promote the idea
o a learning society in which individuals enjoy opportunities
throughout their lives to expand knowledge and adapt their skills to
changing personal and proessional circumstances.
Nearly orty years ater the Faure report was published, these
concepts endure as cornerstones o modern educational thinking
To serve the expanding learning needs o the eld, the gci,
in the early part o this decade, began to lay the oundations or a
department that would ocus exclusively on conservation education
and training. While training would continue within the context
o most o the gcis Field Projects, the new Education department
would give the Institute the opportunity to target specic topics oraudiences that lay beyond the scope o eldwork.
The rst ew years o the Education department have been
ones o growth and refection. As new staffjoined the department,
resh voices were added to an ongoing and ar-ranging discussion on
how the strengths o the Institute could best meet the learning
needs o the eld. Participating in many o these conversations were
colleagues working either with museum collections or with built
heritage, and they articulated needs that they had observed within
these areas. Especially important to this process were discussions
with proessionals working in regions o the world where the eld
o conservation is still nascent and where additional training and
networking opportunities would contribute to the urther develop-
ment o the proession.
This combination o consultation and contemplation created
the oundations ogci Educations current work program, which
will evolve urther as the department expands. Most o our educa-
tional activities will ocus on areas where the gci has had a long track
record, whether gained rom research or rom eldworkor both.
These areas include the conservation and management o archaeo-
logical sites, the environmental management o collections, and the
conservation o photographs. Newer but growing research areas
within the gcior example, the conservation o modern and
contemporary artwill result in training activities that respond to
the urgent need to improve understanding and treatment o this
class o materials.
As we consider the needs o the eld itsel, we will also explore
some new possibilities or pedagogythe theory and practice o
teachingand how it is refected in conservation education. Recent
developments within the education eld, and the increased use o
electronic technology, have signicantly expanded the possibilities
Let:Participants in the 1987 course PreventiveCare o Historic Photographsone o the manytraining courses oered by the GCI through themid-1990s at its Marina del Rey acility. Photo:Thomas Moon, or the GCI.
Right:Instructors at the Teamwork or IntegratedEmergency Management course in southeastEurope preparing materials or an exercise onsalvaging objects ater an emergency. Photo:
Foekje Boersma, GCI.
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Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| Feature 7
As proessionals move through their careers, they are likely to
evolve in any number o ways, pursuing additional learning through
both ormal and, mostly, inormal means. Some career paths may
demand sudden and requent change, while others call or more
subtle and steady growth. Some knowledge and skills acquired at
the start o a career may seem less important later onor maybecome obsolete altogetheras new materials and technologies
come into use and demand new understandings or behaviors rom
practitioners. An individual whose work may be largely technical at
one stage o a career may assume an entirely different roleperhaps
as a manager or an educatorat a later stage. In these roles, techni-
cal knowledge is still important, but different and newer skills are
required. In the workplace, inormal learning provides the timely
inormation and stimuli that allow people to cope with changing or
uncertain circumstances. Learning uels adaptation, as new inor-
mation is acquired, tested, rened, and nally integrated into
proessional practice. By the time most people are ready to retire,
it is estimated that at least 70 percent o the job-related knowledge
theyve acquired over the years has been obtained through inormal
learning (Center or Workorce Development, The Teaching Firm:
Where Productive Work and Learning Converge, 1998).
Education planners, who tend to ocus on the more structured
aspects o learning, oten overlook the importance o inormal
learning in the development o proessionals and o the proessional
ethos. In education or the proessions, internships and residencies
come closest to providing the type o learning that most proession-
als experience in the workplace. While they cannot strictly be
classed as inormal learninggiven that they generally exist within
the ramework o a structured and ormal program o learning
they do prepare younger proessionals or the type o inormal
situational learning that will be a large part o their lives in the
workplace. By combining planned learning experiences with the
randomness o real lie, internships and residencies offer opportuni-
ties or interaction, problem solving, and coping with the uncertain-
ties o the workplace. As such, they provide important transitions
rom academia to praxis.
and practice, particularly in the proessions. Students entering an
academic program in preparation or a proessional career soon
discover that their education will not end in a ew years time with
the conerring o a degree or diploma. Rather, they have made a
commitment to lielong learning, which means increasing their
expertise at every career stage as a responsibility o their choseneld. As is the case in other proessions, students o conservation
are advised o this responsibility as part o their orientation to
the eldor example, by the brochure Conservation Training in the
United States, published by the American Institute or Conservation
o Historic and Artistic Works (2001).
However, lielong learning does not mean lielong schooling.
As the Faure report and subsequent literature have noted, lielong
learning is a process that includes both ormal andto an even
greater extentinormal learning. While ormal education is the
traditional portal into most proessions, the ability to evolve and
to learn to be a ull practitioner is, in large part, the product o the
inormal learning that occurs in the workplace. Inormal learning is
the knowledge transmitted through unstructured situations
conerring with a peer, reading a journal article, researching a
problem encountered on the job, engaging in shoptalk with
colleaguesin other words, the sorts o activities that characterize
the working lives o most proessionals. Although seemingly
random and spontaneous events, these are, in act, knowledge-
creating activities that expand expertise and allow proessionals to
respond to new or changing circumstances. Indeed, most o the
knowledge that humans acquirewhatever their walk o lie
occurs outside a ormal learning environment in circumstances that,
although unstructured, are highly important. Inormal learning is
usually sel-directed and socially driven, requiring access both to
inormation and to other people who may be needed to interpret
or validate that inormation. While inormal learning cannot replace
ormal education (which provides knowledge undamental to a
eld), it does have a critical role to play. It contextualizes and
expands upon ormal learning by taking it rom the classroom and
applying it to circumstances in real lie.
Instructor Monique Fischer (right) discussing the condition o a photographwith a participant in the Fundamentals o the Conservation o Photographscourse, a three-year program or conservation proessionals in central,southern, and eastern Europe. Photo:Sean Charette, GCI.
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8 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| Feature
The GCI Approach to Learning
As is the case with other proessions, many skills needed in conser-
vation are acquired or honed outside the boundaries o traditional
classrooms. As the gci Education department considers how it will
respond to challenges in the eld, we anticipate that short courses
and workshops, which can ocus quickly on the immediate needs
or inormation and skill building, will remain an important part
o the Institutes work. However, our work will also refect the act
that education does not stop with ormally organized courses but
is experienced throughout a career. We anticipate making more
and better use o opportunities or inormal learning and the
interpersonal connections it entails. This will be particularly
important in areas o the world where conservation as a eld is
relatively young and where some proessionals may have limited
contacts with peers elsewhere.
One way to extend learning into the workplace is to blur the
traditional boundaries o a course. A course or workshop no longer
needs to be dened by a specic time period or by a particular
location. Given the communication possibilities provided by
electronic technologies, a ormal learning experience that began
in a traditional classroom setting may now be extended, and even
transormed, through distance learning, coaching, and mentoring.
Oten less structured than a classroom-based course, mentoring and
coaching provide the essential ingredient o inormal learning
social interactionthat in turn osters a sense o proessional
community and identity.Mentoring as an adjunct to classroom learning in conservation
education was rst explored in the Teamwork or Integrated
Emergency Management courses, a collaboration o the gci, icom
(International Council o Museums), and iccrom (International
Centre or the Study o the Preservation and Restoration o
Cultural Property) (see Conservation, vol. 23, no. 1). Since then, the
gci has applied this model to a series o annual courses, Fundamen-
tals o the Conservation o Photographs (see p. 16). The design
o these courses includes mentoring between instructors and course
participants, as well as among groups o participants, or a period
o several months ollowing the classroom phase o the course.
Mentoring guides the activities that participants pursue in the
workplace, as they draw upon the inormation presented earlier
in the classroom. As they undertake this work (either individually
or in collaboration with ellow participants), they remain in contactthrough a course Web site with instructors who may advise, com-
ment, or provide additional inormation.
Mentoring can be adapted to a specic context, including
situations where it may be difficult to maintain long-distance
relationships through electronic communication. An example can
be ound in the two training components o the gcis Conservation
o Mosaics in Situ projectone directed to archaeological site
managers and the other to mosaic technicians. These two compo-
nents involved a series o training workshops or campaigns or
personnel responsible or caring or Tunisias rich heritage o
archaeological mosaics. Most o the participants took part in a series
o training campaigns designed to support an incremental process
o learning and experience. Between each training campaign, the
participants applied what they had learned to their own work sites;
an instructor visited the work sites to assess progress and provide
additional mentoring as required. Critical to the success o this
learning model is an instructor-participant relationship that extends
beyond the temporal boundaries o a single short workshop or
training event. Longer-term encounters acilitate better understand-
ing and more condent practice. A somewhat different approach,
although one that still depends upon a longer-term engagement
with groups o learners, can be ound in the gcis Southeast Asia
initiative (see p. 18). While the initiatives courses and meetings
involve different groups o individuals and institutions, these events
are designed to build a regional community o practice.
Over the next several years, the gci will undertake a number
o new strategic education initiatives, each ocusing on a specic
topic or region. These initiatives will be carried out in partnership
with other international or regional organizations, as well as other
entities o the Getty Trust. An example is the Panel Paintings
Conservator George Bisacca (Metropolitan Museum o Art, New York)and Jose de la Fuente (Prado Museum, Madrid) working on AlbrechtDrers panel painting Eveat the Prado Museum, October 2008. TheGettys Panel Paintings Initiative is a multiyear project designed toaddress the need or educational resources and training opportuni-ties in the structural treatment o panel paintings. Photo:CourtesyGeorge Bisacca.
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Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| Feature 9
Initiative, a collaboration o the gci, the Getty Foundation, and the
J. Paul Getty Museum (see p. 20). The Panel Paintings Initiative
aims to address the long-standing need or training in the structural
stabilization o panel paintings. One o its objectives is to develop
residencies in panel paintings stabilization, which will allow younger
practitioners to work closely with and learn rom a number oexperts practicing in Europe and the United States. Regular
updates on this and other education initiatives undertaken by the
gci will appear in uture issues o the newsletter, as well as on the
Getty Web site.
As the Education department expands over the next several
years, pedagogy will be an increasingly important area o research,
particularly as it applies to conservation, to the audiences were
likely to serve, and to the contexts in which they work. An important
aspect o this work will be the development o case studies that
refect the complex real-lie situations encountered by conservation
proessionals in the course o their work. While case studies are
common in business, legal, and medical education, their potential
has not been ully explored in conservation education. Case studies
developed by the gci will offer an array o issues and viewpoints and
will requently require that learners engage in interdisciplinary
collaboration to reach an agreement. These case studies, ater being
eld-tested in the gcis education projects, will be made available to
other teachers through the Gettys Web site. For example, the gci
has created a preventive conservation case study o a historic house
museum in Amsterdam (www.getty.edu/conservation/education/
case/case_component1.html).
Lifelong Learning and Connections
In recent years, the eld o education, considered broadly, has been
going through a remarkable transormative phase, driven in part by
technological advances that have inspired new ways o thinking
about and pursuing learning goals. Many o these developments
hold considerable potential or conservation education, both in the
classroom and in the workplace. In the uture, lielong learning or
conservation will likely mean more than simply acquiring new
inormation and skills. The extra and enriching dimension is the
connectedness that results rom increased peer interactions,
whether these come in the orm o ace-to-ace communication or
are aided by some orm o inormation technology. Indeed, Web 2.0
applications that assist communication and collaborationblogs,
social networks, discussion orums, and wikismay be what givethe biggest boost to a global community o lielong learners, eager
or both inormation and connection. As these communication tools
become more common, they are likely to grow in importance in
areas where the conservation eld is still developing.
Learning has expanded into new settingsthe workplace,
the eld, and even cyberspacepresenting resh opportunities or
both ormal structured learning and inormal learning. Given the
rapid pace o scientic and technological advances in the eld,
particularly in recent years, conservation proessionals need to be
prepared to assimilate new scientic or technological advances
quickly, as well as adopt new ways o thinking and learn new
applications within their areas o expertise. At the same time, they
will nd the advantages o being part o a more socially connected
community, as inormation technologies expand the geographical
reach o the workplace. As the gci Education department grows, our
work will increasingly extend beyond the walls o the classroom and
the boundaries o traditional courses, refecting the act that
learning must happen where and when it is needed.
Kathleen Dardes is head o GCI Education.
Workshop participants analyzing the conditions o a deterioratedstructure at the World Heritage Site o Vat Phou, Lao PeoplesDemocratic Republic. This workshop was part o the GCIs BuiltHeritage in Southeast Asia Conservation and Education TrainingInitiative. Photo:Je Cody, GCI.
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10 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| Dialogue
Out in the FieldA Discussionabout Educationand GCIField Projects
Neville Agnew is senior principal project specialist
with GCI Field Projects. A member othe Institutes
staffor over twenty years, Agnew, a chemist by
training, has served in several leadership positions
at the GCI and has headed up a number ocollab-
orative eld projects. These have included work inChina and on the Iraq Cultural Heritage Conserva-
tion Initiative, as well as the Southern Arica
Rock Art Project. His newest project ocuses on
conservation and management or the Valley othe
Queens in Egypt.
Francesca Piquwas ormerly a project specialist
with GCI Field Projects. Piqu, with a background
in both chemistry and wall paintings conservation,
worked on GCI projects in China, Benin, Israel, the
Czech Republic, and Tanzania, as well as Italy
(her native country). Now based outside oFlorence
as a conservation consultant, she continues to work
with the GCI on the Organic Materials in Wall
Paintings project and on the project at Herculaneum.
Thomas Roby is a senior project specialist with GCI
Field Projects. With a background in archaeology
and conservation, Roby worked as a private conser-
vator based in Italy or teen years, prior to joining
the GCI in 2001. Since coming to the Institute, he has
managed the GCIs Conservation oMosaics In Situ
technician training program in Tunisia. He also
served as the GCIs senior project conservator
on the development oa conservation plan or the
hieroglyphic stairway at the Maya site oCopn
in Honduras.
They spoke with Kathleen Dardes, head o
GCI Education, andJeffrey Levin, editor o
Conservation, The GCI Newsletter.
Kathleen Dardes: From the beginning, education and training have
been an important part oGCI Field Projects, which seeks to
advance conservation practice through model eld projects
around the world. In all othese projects, the GCI works with
local partners to enhance expertise and to ensure the sustainabil-
ity othe work. Obviously, training contributes to that.Since the three oyou have been greatly involved in GCI
Field Projects, we wanted your refections on these efforts. In other
words, what issues has the Institute been trying to address through
the training that has been part othese projects; what approaches
have you ound to be most successul; and where should training
out in the eld go in the uture?
Neville Agnew: Let me start by saying that there has been a shit in the
Institutes approach to training in conservation in the eld and in
eld projects. The gcis ormer Training Program [198597]
organized ormal courses directed mainly at midcareer proessionals
and covering a variety o topicsintensive courses that ran rom
one to three weeks. This was very valuable, but it explicitly
excluded technician training. So that group was a ocus o our early
training in our eld projects. Our approach has broadened more
recently to address in more pragmatic ways several levels o educa-
tion and training.
At one level, its decision makers. We try to ulll this not
necessarily through training, but we do try to infuence through the
collaboration, so that we achieve a common understanding. At the
mid-stratumwhich is the old stratum o midcareer proession-alstheres still some ocus. And then, thirdly, there is technician
training. Very oten these are the colleagues who do the work on the
ground, so its important to build their knowledge and skills.
One o our approaches is repeated course work with the same
group, because one inoculation o training is seldom effective in the
long run. You have to ocus intensively on pretty much the same
group and carry them through the process, so that they begin to
adopt a new way o doing things and develop a good understanding
o conservation principles and practice.
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Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| Dialogue 11
Francesca Piqu: I eel that the thinking behind gci training is
also related to the sustainability o our effort. I we work at a site
in China or in Arica addressing a challenging conservation
problem with our local partnersan effort that takes a lot o
resources and a lot o timewe want to ensure that the results are
sustainable over time. So training the local proessionals, at all the
different levels and in all aspects o the project, is essential. Also,
we know that oten the one-shot treatment is not effective enough,
and that monitoring and maintenance are essential. It is important
that we involve, through training and education, the local partners,
so that ater a project is completed, the results can be monitored
and maintained by prepared proessionals.
Ideally, everywhere we do a project, we should create a legacy
o conservation experts who understand deterioration and are able
to request help or do remedial treatment i the need arises. A good
example o this is the St. Vitus mosaic project in Prague [www.getty.
edu/conservation/eld_projects/vitus/], where the post-
treatment monitoring and maintenance o the protective coating orthe glass mosaic are crucial. In this project, the conservation team
included senior and experienced Czech conservators working with
junior conservators, who would be able to learn and continue to pass
on the knowledge and requirements or the monitoring program.
The monitoring continues to be carried out regularly by a senior and
a junior conservator.
Thomas Roby: I agree that or long-term sustainability, mixing ormal
training and inormal training is important. In the Institutes
Mosaics In Situ project in Tunisia [www.getty.edu/conservation/
eld_projects/mosaics/index.html], the idea was to ocus on
technician training, where, through a shorter program o study,
we could begin to produce personnel who could work on sites on a
daily basis. Weve luckily had the opportunity in Tunisiaater the
ormal training, which lasts or two yearsto return to the sites
where our trainees have been working and to work with them in
addressing new or more challenging situations that they might not
be prepared or, or to help them establish their work in a new site.
Its extremely important that there be continued mentoring and
long-term support or the people were training.
Piqu: I would add that when we work in a new country, we oten
deal with new problems and materials, and its been useul or us to
have this close interaction with the local experts because there is a
lot to learn rom them. We denitely learn what is available locally,
how they use their materials, and how they have dealt with problems,
as well as learn about different conservation methods that they may
have. This aspect o exchange is very important because it enables
us to develop an intervention together with the partners.
Jerey Levin: Thats an important point. Neville, could you talk
more about this interaction and how it builds a larger base
oknowledge or both sides?
Agnew: Our training in the context o the eld projects themselves
has been inormal because the objective is to undertake the project
collaboratively. We involve our partner organization in the method-
ology o the work and the thinking behind the methodology.
Certainly we learn rom themparticularly rom their way o doing
things but also rom their understanding o their own culture and
history, which is very inormative to us and infuences our thinking.
An example would be the ways in which local communities have
cared or rock art in southern Arica. They have a vested interest in
taking care o their rock art, not only or tourism and economic
reasons but oten or traditional ceremonies. We have realized that
to be effective, we have to adopt a multi-pronged approach to bring
the partner staffinto the equation and to infuence them in a
systematic way or the better.
One way in which we have been able to create a sustainable
effect is through bringing partner organization staffto the Institute
here in Los Angeles. This builds them into the project in ways that
are o value to both sides. I you put yoursel in the place o
technicians or site managers in Arica or China who are descended
upon by a team o Getty people to do a collaborative projectthey
have no real sense o where were coming rom and our proessional
context. So having them come to the gci to work with us is an
effective bridging mechanism.Another way o striving or success is through mentoring
on a regular basis. For example, our mentor in Egypt has a PhD in
architecture and regularly visits our wall painting and site manage-
ment teams in Luxor to spend a couple o days with them. From the
projects perspective, mentoring is important not only or its
educational component but because it maintains the projects
momentum between campaigns.
We involve our partner
organization in the
methodology of the work
and the thinking behind
the methodology.
Neville Agnew
JonathanBell,
GCI.
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12 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| Dialogue
Dardes: In the initiatives omy department, GCI Education
[www.getty.edu/conservation/education/about/], weve also
seen the value ousing mentors, although we use them in a
somewhat different way. I am always curious about how people
respond to mentors. I think there must be some compatibility
between the mentor and the learner.
Agnew: Its a good question. I think it depends upon the personality
o the mentor. A mentor should be able to communicate in a way
that is nonthreatening and should be seen by both sides as a commu-
nication link, gaining the condence o the team.
Piqu: It is essential in projects to keep the momentum going. For
example, in a project with two xed campaigns per year, we would
leave trainees a set o conservation or documentation and monitor-
ing activities to be done in between campaigns. Nevertheless, it was
hard to maintain the peak o the activity o campaigns ater the gci
team let, and communication was difficult and costly. Nowadays,
it is much easier to be in touch remotely, and the moment a traineends himsel in a difficult situation or needs some advice and
technical support, he can use communication tools like email,
videoconerencing, and even Skype, which is ree. Communication
technology has advanced signicantly compared to ten years ago,
when we were working on the bas-relie project in Abomey [www.
getty.edu/conservation/eld_projects/abomey/index.html].
Then, even a phone call was difficult.
Levin: Tom, how have you dealt with this challenge omaintaining
momentum?
Roby: Our approach has been to organize specic campaigns or
generally six weeks twice per year, but between these ormal
campaigns, work assignments are given, and we have tried to have
one o the teachers visit the sites where the trainees are based to
ensure that the assigned work has been carried out satisactorily.
We have also organized a review, or reresher, campaign to bring the
trainees together again ater several years. And when the trainees are
going to work in a new site, we generally make the effort to be with
them and to try to coordinate their work rom the beginning, in
terms o documenting mosaics and organizing materials. This hasbeen done in Tunisia with technicians, where theyve lacked the
supervising person, who would be the conservator.
Levin:Are there other lessons youve learned over the years with
respect to organizing this training?
Roby: We started offexpecting all o the trainees to be able to do all
o the different aspects o mosaic conservation and maintenance,
but weve come to realize that its perhaps best to select trainees who
will be able to be a bit more specialized in different aspects o the
work. They still should have the basic background and even practi-
cal training in all aspects o the work, but now we look or people
with different educational backgrounds so that theyll be more adept
at different operationscreating a team not o specialists but o
individuals with skills in different activities. There is an optimum
level or, say, a technician whos mainly doing manual work, and
then theres someone with a higher educational level who wouldcarry out much o the documentation.
Weve also adjusted how we do the training because, in many
cases, the educational tradition o the country emphasizes memoriz-
ing and learning things by rote. Weve tried to not get caught in the
trap o providing, lets say, a manual o how to do things. Its
extremely important to consider every situation and every mosaic
individually and determine the appropriate treatments by applying
principles, not recipes.
Agnew: So youre emphasizing analysis and decision making?
Roby: At the technician level, its difficult to get the kind o analysis
that you would expect o a conservator. But decision making about
what are going to be the correct ingredients or making an appropri-
ate mortar or a specic repair operation and situation? Yes. The
amount o time we spend doing practical work with them helps
build up their competence. For sure, with certain individuals who
have a strong commitment and skills, weve seen that they can, at the
end o a minimum o two years, begin to approach things on their
own and appropriately adapt the methodology theyve learned to
different situations.
Piqu: In the Abomey project, we carried out training at two
different levels. Our communication with the conservation trainees
was in French, the countrys official language. But when it came to
training the techniciansthe people who would be responsible or
the regular monitoringwe decided that this training would be
done effectively through the conservation trainees who spoke Fon,
the local native language. The conservation trainees were the bridge
between us. We prepared the course material, but it was actually the
conservation trainees who passed on the inormation to the techni-
cians directly in their language and in an effective manner.
If we work at a site . . .
addressing a challenging
conservation problem with
our local partners, we want
to ensure that the results
are sustainable over time.
Francesca Piqu
GiacomoChiari,
GCI.
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Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| Dialogue 13
Agnew: Thats a very interesting way o doing thingshaving the
involvement o a trainee group in teaching. Because thats actually
how you learnthrough teaching.
Piqu: Its so true. It was really effective or the conservation trainees
to train the technicians. They elt that they had absorbed the con-
cepts and the methodology o the work and were ready to pass it on.
Dardes: One othe things the GCI Education department is doingis taking people who participated in a previous course and
bringing them in as teaching assistants or new courses, so that
they can, as Neville said, learn how to teach and learn to use our
materials and resources as they partner with more experienced
teachers. Thats been extremely useul because it does, slowly but
surely, build an education inrastructure.
Agnew: One o the problems that weve aced wherever weve
workedparticularly in countries where theres a tradition o rote
learning and more top-down decision makingis that both conser-
vation technicians and even conservation proessionals are oten
expected to do physical interventions on cultural material. That is
their job. And they are judged by that activity. What you tend to see
is a haste to intervene. The approach is not rst one o measured
assessment, diagnosis, testing, and then, nally, intervention.
In China, the China Principles [a gci collaborative project that
developed and promoted national guidelines or conservation and
management o Chinas cultural heritage sites] has been a valuable
tool in beginning to convey the importance o doing the assessments
rst. The last thing you do is intervene, not the rst. It has been a
huge challenge to break that mold and to inculcate a systematic
methodological approach.
Piqu: Thats absolutely the challenge. I we are working with and
training at the level o the technicians but they dont have managers
or supervisors who understand and support new ways o working
such as a methodology that doesnt embrace immediate treatment
but avors stopping and thinking rstthen its impossible or
training to be effective, and we risk losing all results.
Roby: In Tunisia weve seen lots o examples o technicians whove
been expected to intervene immediately and quickly. Theyre oten
judged, as Neville said, on the amount o treatment work theyre
able to do, not on the quality. We try to address this pressure by
having meetings on site among the site directors and the technicians
and to have them work together to develop a program o interven-
tion that is based on prioritieswhich in turn are based on an
assessment o conditions at the site.
Piqu: Another typical problem is that trained proessionals later
leave their positions and move on to higher posts with different
responsibilitiesand thereore what theyve learned cannot be used
in the context in which they were trained. Weve experienced that in
projects in China and Benin. Weve had people who were trained to
do a specic type o work and who later were moved to another
department, so the training is lost to the original context. This is
why education must be done at all levels, so that the people who
decide where they go do understand the importance o their role in
their position, with the knowledge gained through our collaborative
project.
Agnew: Theres an old adage about planting three seedsone or
the crow, one or the drought, and one or the crop. The attrition
rate among trainees, through leaving their jobs, is oten high.
One has to have sufficient numbers o participants trained over
a sustained period o time to hope that a ew get through those
various lters and challenges, so that you do have some who later
will be infuential.
Ultimately the success in countries in which we work relies
on having proessionals ormally educated in conservation. Thats
difficult or us to undertake. One experiment that Ive been involved
with is setting up a masters degree course in China between
Lanzhou University and the Dunhuang Academy, with the partici-
pation o the Courtauld Institute o Art and the gci. To bring
together the our partners and to obtain the approval o Chinas
state administration took some years to do, but the university is on
its second class o students now. The objective is to train a proes-
sional cadre o conservators, because in China, as elsewhere,
proessionally educated conservators are very rare birds. The
long-term objective is to create a sustained program that serves
all o Chinanot just the Dunhuang Academy. The Institutes
involvement is or two three-year cycles o masters degrees. I it
doesnt take ater that and cannot live on its own, we would let it go.
Levin: China, ocourse, is a very large country with substantial
resources, and it can certainly sustain the existence othat
kind oprogram. Is that possible in some o the other places where
we work?
Agnew: Weve never tried to do it elsewhere. In some instances it
could be possible, but each would require time and careul negotia-
tion. Part o the problemand this may refect a problem in
conservation generally in such countriesis that the intake
students or the course at Lanzhou University oten ail the national
entrance exam. That tells us that a lot o people in China have taken
on conservation work without a sufficient level o education to
qualiy or a national university-level degree. Thats startling. Weve
overcome that by encouraging the Dunhuang Academy to give
intensive coaching to prospective students to get them through the
entrance exam and into the masters degree program.
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14 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| Dialogue
New Projects
Piqu: Conservation has become a highly scientic discipline
compared to what it was a ew decades ago. The level o knowledge
that a conservator should ideally have is much higher than what it
used to beprimarily hands-on cratsmanship knowledge o how
material behaves. There is no doubt that the scientic approach is a
good thing, but on the other hand, because were shiting toward the
theoretical approach, we start to see a lack o good conservators who
know how to treat material in a compatible and minimal way. At the
end o the day, one o the hardest parts o a conservation program is
the development and implementation o a sound, long-lasting
intervention to address a particular conservation problem. Hands-
on conservation experience cannot be learned rom a book but
requires practice over a long period o time.
Agnew: But, Francesca, you have to have a person who has enough
ormal education and training to be able to make the decisions and
then provide the right input to the technicianwhat the approach
should be and how the intervention should be done. Conservation
still suffers rom its history. It has less academic credibility in
universities than the long-established areas o the arts and the
sciences, or example. It just doesnt have that. Nor does it attract
people who could make more money in, say, computer science and
similar disciplines. Its got a lot stacked against it. This is why we
come back to the need or a multipronged approach that includes
things like technician training, midlevel career education, and
university standard programs.
Roby: A problem we ace is that many people in different parts o the
world who get ormal university training in conservation oten endup not being the ones to do the actual intervention or manual work.
There is a big divide between the people who actually do manual
work and the proessionals who dont. A conservator has a prole
that should bridge that gapcombining an academic background
with manual skills and the desire to be on site.
Agnew: We can hope that the person who has proessional knowledge
and understanding o how to conserve and manage would be the
person in charge o determining what kind o intervention should
be done, and would be the person who can direct the operations
o well-trained technicians in implementing those decisions.
Roby: The situation we nd in Tunisia is i we have a conservator
recently trained, that person may be able to make the decisions
about treatmentbut is not going to be the person who can actually
train the technicians, by example, manually. He or she wont have
the practical experience. So, ideally, yes, it would be the local conser-
vator who does the training o the technicians. But it will take years
o experience ater their training beore they can train others.
Levin: Related to some othe things we just talked about is the
objective oostering networks oproessionals. This is something
that the GCI Education program is trying to do. Has this been a
part oany othe education efforts oGCI Field Projects?
Agnew: The objective o the Southern Arican Rock Art Project was
to look regionally at the twelve southern Arican countries to
develop site management plans or rock art, and to be more strategic
by bringing in participants rom different parts o the region to
work togetherwith the expectation and hope that they would stay
in contact with one another and share knowledge and inormation.
The other thrust o the project has been to provide training skills at
the local level, which qualies participants to serve as guides to rock
art sites. Weve done training courses in the impoverished Clanwil-
liam area in southern South Arica or young people who have no
ormal trainingand also in the north, in Mapungubwe, where
weve trained park rangers who are generally well qualied in the
natural environment but have no experience as guides or rock art
sites. So its a many-part endeavor.
Levin: What are some othe things that we should be doing
as we rene our efforts with respect to education as part oour
eld projects?
Agnew: One o the things that may have been neglected is distribu-
tion o training materials on a wider basis. We have a lot o good
material. In the early days o the Training Program, it was deter-
mined that each training course would have to be tailored to a
particular audience. Theres a lot o value in that. The downside is
that much o the material has not been made accessible and is
moldering on the shel. We have a huge volume o material that
could be disseminated.
Dardes: This is a very important aim or our department. However,
it requires us to make sure that were not just disseminating odd
bits that come out oour courses but that whatever we produce can
be understood by uture users, whether theyre practitioners or
other educators. Were looking at models oopen source course-
ware and teaching materials to understand how people dissemi-
nate the products otheir teaching. Its also been useul to see howsome othese models oster the creation oa community o
educators, where theres a lot otraffic back and orth oideas and
meaningul didactic resources.
Agnew: I agree with that absolutely. But I do have a note o caution.
I remember when we were developing the research material that
came out o the Getty Seismic Adobe Project [www.getty.edu/
conservation/science/seismic/], and someone said, You know,
youve written the book. Now its as though youre walking next to a
high wall and you toss the book over it. Hope One is that someone
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Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| Dialogue 15
on the other side will pick it up. Hope Two is that that person will
read it. Hope Three is that it will be understood. And Hope Four is
that the person will be able to apply the knowledge useully.
Dardes: Youve made an important point, and this is why
I discourage people rom just sitting down and writing didactic
materials or hypothetical courses. It never works. You have to
plan the course, design the materials, teach the course, and then
disseminate the materials. But disseminate them with the
insights gained rom actually using the materials in an authentic
teaching situation.
Levin: Tom, are there some other things besides materials that you
think are important to consider in uture training that is part o
GCI Field Projects?
Roby: The experience that Ive had in Tunisia has shown me that
when one is training people to actually do physical intervention
on a work o art, it is a great responsibility. Weve seen poor use o
our training in some cases, but it has demonstrated that the people
whom we train need to be the right people, people who have
commitmentand that its not just a way o becoming employed.
In uture training activities, we should pay more attention to the
choice o individuals who will be receiving the training.
In the beginning in Tunisia, we were only training people
who were already employees, because that was an insurance that
they would continue to work. Then, as we continued, we increas-
ingly trained people who were not already involved in governmentwork. Fortunately, many o those people, in the end, were hired, but
the choice o the individualand again, with the aim o choosing
people who will provide an effective team o different skills
is extremely important.
Levin:And in that process, are you also looking at people who
have the skills, ability, and willingness to be conveyors o
inormationindividuals who not only assimilate the inorma-
tion youre giving them but who can, over time, turn around and
convey inormation to their own colleagues?
Roby: Weve made signicant attempts to do that, and weve involved
the previous trainees in the current training activities. Weve
realized, though, that theres a certain amount o reluctance among
the trainees, because some o them see their skill as what guarantees
their employment. In some cases, weve seen a real reluctance to
share their knowledge with other, younger people. But in other
instances, weve seen trainees taking on this role. However, it doesnt
replace a lengthy ormal training process. Theres quite a difference
between being trained by the trainee and being trained directly by
the ormal instructors o the courses.
Piqu: I think we could improve training in gci Field Projects by
more effectively collaborating with colleagues with education and
training experience. Once we are in the eld, we are so involved with
all the complex components that make up a eld projectincluding
developing intervention, documentation, and so many other
logistical aspects o the projectthat its not easy to give enough
ocused attention to training and education initiatives. Going back
to the experience that we had in Abomey, having a colleague
Valerie Dorgewho was responsible or the training aspect o the
project was helpul. It did take a bit o our time and additional
planning, but in the end, the results, in terms o education and
training, were denitely there to be seen. And the training
material was organized to be adapted or use in other projects in
French-speaking countries, such as the mosaic conservation training
in Tunisia.
Roby: In most o the situations weve been talking about, training
is one aspect o a larger project, which has its own objectives.In Tunisia, weve had the luxury o training being the essential
scope o the project. It didnt ever go beyond that, and in that way,
it probably could and should have been within the gci Education
department. It has more in common with gci Education activities
than with gci Field Projects.
Dardes: Our ocus in GCI Education is certainly, as we grow, to be
more involved with Field Projects, in those instances where there
is a dened component otraining. We can assist in taking that
burden offthese enormously complex projects, as well as making
sure that the products oour training efforts are disseminated.
Were also, by the way, looking at working more closely with
GCI Science, because theres a lot oresearch coming out othat
department that should be disseminated through courses and
workshops. Only the act that we are still a small department
has stopped us rom doing more othis. Its denitely in our
sights to work with both Field Projects and Science in a more
integrated way.
The people whom
we train need to be the
right people, people who
have commitment.
Thomas Roby
JonathanBell,
GCI.
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16 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| News in Conservation
practical knowledge o photograph conservation through an
ongoing series o summer schools and distance learning activities.
It draws upon the expertise o the international community o
photograph conservators to provide training and resources and to
encourage the development o a new and enduring network o
photograph conservation proessionals in the region.A three-year regional course entitled Fundamentals o the
Conservation o Photographs is the rst component o the initiative.
The course combines classroom instruction with distance learning
activities that extend teaching and learning beyond the connes o
the classroom. In the context o the conservation o photographs
course, distance learning is linked to practical workplace experience,
and it incorporates a variety o teaching tools, including use o a
course Web site, application o course lessons to workplace situa-
tions, and distance mentoring conducted by course instructors via
the Internet.
Each year, or module, o the course begins with a two- or
three-week summer school and is ollowed by eight months o
distance learning and mentoring. During this period, participants
Advancing PhotographConservationA New Initiative in Central,Southern, and Eastern Europe
By Sean Charette
The field of photograph conservation is characterized by
a network o proessionals who have built a strong community o
practice, dening photograph conservation as a distinct specializa-
tion within conservation. This international community o photo-
graph conservators is a dynamic one, as refected in the work
o proessional associations such as the icom-cc Working GroupPhotographic Materials and the Photographic Materials Group
o the American Institute or Conservation.
However, despite these strengths, there is a need within the
eld or additional trained photograph conservators to deal with an
ever-expanding range o photographic materials, especially in parts
o the world where ormal training in the conservation o photo-
graphs is lacking. One such region consists o central, southern,
and eastern Europe, whose museums, archives, and libraries are
home to a rich heritage o artistic and documentary photographs.
A needs assessment conducted by the Getty Conservation Institute
in 2006 clearly indicated that interest in preserving this heritage
is strong among conservation proessionals in this region but that
educational opportunities to aid in this preservation effort
particularly at the academic levelare limited. In recent years,
the Northeast Document Conservation Center o Andover, Massa-
chusetts, has offered in the region several short courses on various
photograph conservation topics. As successul as these courses
have been, there remains a large group o regional proessionals
conservators, curators, librarians, and archivistswho are
interested in acquiring additional expertise in understanding and
caring or photographic heritage.
A Regional Initiative
Following the needs assessment, the gci partnered with the Acad-
emy o Fine Art and Design (afad) in Bratislava, Slovakia, and the
Slovak National Library in Martin to advance regional photograph
conservation through an education initiative entitled Conservation
o Photographs and Photograph Collections or Countries o
Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe. This multiyear initiative
has a number o objectives, including providing theoretical and
Instructor Monique Fischer discussing the condition o a photograph withcourse participants. Photo:Sean Charette, GCI.
Course participants learning to identiy photo-graphic processes using microscopic examination.Photo:Dusan Stulik, GCI.
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Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| News in Conservation 17
There are also less ormal activities, which do not involve
scheduled assignments. For example, participants are encouraged
to build their own photographic study collection or teaching and
reerence purposes. They may request and receive guidance rom
course instructors and make use o analytical equipment at summer
schools to ully characterize and understand these study collections.In addition, with the support o course instructors/mentors,
participants are encouraged to address research questions that will
advance the eld (particularly important at this time o signicant
change in the eld o photography) and to disseminate inormation
and resources through proessional activities.
The course Web site plays a crucial role in the distance-
learning phase o the project and in promoting communication.
In addition, it serves as a central reerence point or inormation and
documents related to the course. All o the teaching material created
or compiled or the coursearticles, bibliographies, handouts, and
other material developed by the instructorsis maintained on the
course Web site and is available or participants to read or download
at any time.
Instead o a series o separate workshops, this initiative
provides a learning process that participants themselves help shape
through ongoing dialogue. The three-year ormat o the course
extends learning and acilitates communication with the goal o
building a network o inormed, well-connected, and active conser-
vation proessionals in central, southern, and eastern Europe.
This growing community o conservation proessionals will, in turn,
contribute to the strength o photograph conservation as a proes-
sion and help the proession meet the challenges o conserving
photographic heritage.
Sean Charette is a project specialist with GCI Education.
Specic inormation regarding the content and curriculum othe
Fundamentals othe Conservation oPhotographs course can be
ound at: www.getty.edu/conservation/education/cons_photo/
cons_photo_course.html.
carry out capacity-building activities within their own collections,
applying learning acquired during the summer school with the
ongoing support o course instructors/mentors.
The seventeen course participants are conservators, archivists,
and other proessionals responsible or the care o photographic
collections. The same core participant group is maintained through-
out the course, in order to acilitate the ormation o proessional
networks. The course instructors and mentors, established leaders
in photograph conservation, use a team-teaching approach in the
classroom and during distance mentoringan approach that
incorporates a variety o perspectives and allows healthy discussions
to develop.
Module 1 o the Fundamentals o the Conservation o
Photographs course began with a three-week summer school held
at afad in Bratislava rom July 21 to August 8, 2008, ollowed by the
distance learning and mentoring phase o the module, which runs
through April 20, 2009. Module 2 o the course will begin with a
summer school in Slovakia in the summer o2009.
Extending Learning
Extending learning beyond the classroom is a critical part o the
Fundamentals o the Conservation o Photographs course. This
component allows course participants to continue to develop their
knowledge and practical skills in their own workplace within a
structured ramework o learning and guidance. Participants
become comortable making decisions and applying new skills
within the context o their own collections, as well as communicat-
ing conservation concerns and ideas to their colleagues.For example, the program o distance learning used or the
rst module o the course consists o one primary activitythe
survey o a small collection o photographs (a personal or amily
collection). The survey includes a number o tasks that are carried
out over the eight-month distance-learning period, with partici-
pants presenting the results o these tasks in a series o reports.
The initial report describes the collection in terms o processes and
parameters; the second describes the collections condition and
priorities as identied by the participant. The nal report outlines
a detailed conservation plan addressing such subjects as conserva-tion treatment and preventive conservation recommendations;
access to the collection and related issues o documentation and
digitization; and unding sources or the collections conservation
and maintenance.
The reports are posted to the course Web site. Mentors review
them and provide comments that are shared among the group, so
that others may read and discuss them. The course Web site
includes a discussion orum that may be used in this way or utilized
or more general discussions.
GCI senior scientist and course instructor Dusan Stulik examininga photograph with a participant in the Fundamentals o the Conservationo Photographs course. Photo:Art Kaplan, GCI.
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SustainingConservation Educationin Southeast Asia
By Jeff Cody and Kecia Fong
18 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| News in Conservation
The needs assessment also raised questions. Should the educa-
tional work be geared to proessionals rom several Asian countries
(with different languages, economies, and politics), as opposed to
those rom an individual country? I the intended audience comes
rom many countries, then where, geographically, should the gci
ocus its activities? How, and with whom should partnerships beorged? How should instructors rom outside the region teach
participants who came rom within the region? What would be the
duration o the gcis contact with any one group or the duration o
any individual activity? This last question o duration touched upon
issues o sustainability and capacity building.
With these questions and the needs assessment in mind, gci
Education staffdesigned an initiative with three overlapping
components:
1. eld workshops or conservation proessionals,
2. didactic materials or conservation education, and
3. meetings o topical interest or proessionals in conservation
and other related elds.
Each component is geared toward a particular audience.
The eld workshops, which are or practicing eld proessionals,
are characterized by practical, problem-based learning on site.
The didactic materials component is being developed collabora-
tively with Southeast Asian educators and practicing proessionals
to create region-specic case studies or use in academic and
training programs. The meetings o topical interest are or proes-
sionals o diverse skills whose work impacts heritage conservationbut who are not necessarily conservation proessionals. Collectively
these components, launched in 2008, address both ormal and
inormal modes o learning at various stages o a proessionals
lielong learning process.
The Initiative in Action
The eld workshops are envisioned as a series o intensive activities
that cohere around themes that vary according to the conservation
challenges o a particular site. Participants represent a variety
During the seventh centuryalong the Mekong River in
what is now the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (Lao pdr)an
extensive, ortied city fourished as an important regional trading
center. For its inhabitants, the natural land ormations near the city
signied a holy site and inspired them to build temple complexes
dedicated to Hindu gods. One o the most important temples cameto be known as Vat Phou.
Fourteen hundred years later, the town o Champasak is home
to the World Heritage site o Vat Phou. There, in spring 2008,
twenty-ve young conservation proessionals rom Thailand,
Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, and the Lao pdr participated in a
two-week workshop organized by the Getty Conservation Institute
(gci) with three other partners: the Lao pdrs Ministry o Inorma-
tion and Culture, the Lerici Foundation, and seameo-spafa (the
Southeast Asian Ministers o Education Organization Regional
Centre or Archaeology and Fine Arts). Entitled From Risk Assess-
ment to Conservation: Saeguarding Archaeological Complexes in
the Mekong Region, the workshop was the inaugural event o the
gcis Built Heritage in Southeast Asia Conservation Education and
Training Initiative.
Creating the Initiative
Although many domestic and international organizations are
working in Southeast Asia, the region remains in need o more
ocused conservation education. In the early 2000s, the gci decided
that it wanted to complement the efforts o others in strategic ways
by improving regional conservation practices and building a
community o local conservation practitioners. The shape and
direction o the gci initiative developed rom an assessment con-
ducted by the gci that identied several areas o conservation need:
archaeologicalsites,
materialsconservation,
mixedarchaeologicalandurbancontexts,
urbandevelopmentandconservationplanning,
builtheritageconservationeducation.
The World Heritage Site o Vat Phou, Lao Peoples Democratic Republicthelocation o the workshop From Risk Assessment to Conservation: Saeguard-ing Archaeological Complexes in the Mekong Region. Photo:Kristin Kelly, GCI.
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and practitioners o conservation programs in the Asia Pacic
region related to built heritage gathered to discuss the gaps between
the content o Asian Pacic conservation programs and the needs o
the eld. The gci will take a leadership role in working with local
educators and practitioners to develop region-specic case studies.
The third component ocuses on nonconservation proes-sionals whose work impacts heritage. They are oten neglected but
critical participants in heritage protection. Fostering constructive
dialogues among several kinds o proessionals was one o the key
objectives o the recent orum held in Siem Reap, Cambodia, this
past October. Coorganized by the gci in conjunction with three
other national and international organizations, the orum brought
together orty Cambodian and oreign experts; these included
developers, economists, planners, tourism officials, monks, and
conservation proessionals. They discussed how the rapid and
oten unregulated urbanization o Siem Reap can be detrimental
to the historic resources o nearby Angkor Archaeological Park
and its local residents. The orums lively exchange o views
underscored the importance o understanding the interrelation-
ships between dynamic development and conservationas opposed
to seeing them solely in confict with each other. The summary
points resulting rom the orums discussions, including recom-
mendations or action, will appear in a nal report that will be sent
to both apsara (Authority or Protection and Management o
Angkor and the Region o Siem Reap) and the Siem Reap provincial
government.
The gcis Southeast Asia Initiativewith its multiaceted
design and diverse pedagogical approachesseeks to engage a
broad spectrum o conservation proessionals. It is hoped that the
three complementary components o the initiative will support
learning and improved conservation practice, not just at a single
point in the careers o Southeast Asian practitioners but at various
stages o their proessional lives.
Je Cody is a senior project specialist and Kecia Fong is a project specialist with GCI
Education.
Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| News in Conservation 19
o skill sets, including, but not limited to, archaeology, archi-
tecture, landscape architecture, engineering, and urban planning;
this diversity refects the interdisciplinary nature o conservation
and the reality o the proessionals who actually perorm conserva-
tion work.
The 2008Vat Phou workshop ocused on assessing a siteholistically as a dynamic, interconnected place, rather than as a
series o disparate, static monuments, and it emphasized the
importance o understanding the site in the context o its broader
geographic and social dimension. By mapping layers o value over
perceived risks to the site, participants were able to begin prioritiz-
ing risks and needs. The workshop promoted a practical, value-
based methodology predicated upon identiying risk and prioritiz-
ing problems so that effective solutions could be implemented.
In terms o pedagogy, multiple means were used to engage the
participants, especially since the language o instruction (English)
posed an inevitable challenge. In addition to ormal lectures,
emphasis was placed on more interactive teaching methods, which
included guided discussions, participant presentations, group work,
diagnostic eldwork, and eld trips.
The second workshop in this seriesto be held at Chiang
Saen in northern Thailandwill take place in November 2009.
At this workshop, the concepts and methodology taught at Vat Phou
will be reinorced and applied in a location where an urban settle-
ment is developing in the midst o a large archaeological site.
Community participation in conservation decisions is likely to be
an important component o the curriculum. We anticipate that a
core group o participants rom the Vat Phou workshop will
continue with the Chiang Saen workshop; thus, ample opportunity
will be provided or learning and practicing new methodologies and
or promoting contact within this evolving regional community o
conservation practitioners.
While lielong learning or proessionals is essential, there
remains a great need or didactic materials at the academic level.
This was the clarion call o the 2008 Directors Retreat (see Conser-
vation, vol. 23, no. 2), organized by the gci, where twenty leaders
Southeast Asian conservation proessionals working as a team duringa workshop eld exercise. Photo:Je Cody, GCI.
Workshop participants assessing the state o conservation o a allen statue,as part o a eld exercise. Photo:Je Cody, GCI.
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Panel supports, prepared by skilled woodworkers, were either
made rom a single piece o wood or constructed rom a number o
pieces joined together or larger paintings. In the case o paintings
with complicated structures, such as polyptychs, the woodworker
cooperated closely with the painter, who provided specications or
the manuacture o the support.Wood, an organic material, continuously responds to changes
in temperature and humidity. Its ability to absorb and desorb
moisture rom the surrounding air (thereby swelling and shrinking,
respectively) makes paintings on panels susceptible to structural
damage caused by climatic changes, including warping, twisting,
and splittingall o which affect the paint layer in a negative way.
The worst o these processes can cause paint loss.
In most cases, ater repeated cycles o swelling and shrinking
in response to changes in the environment, paintings on panels are
no longer fat, as originally constructed. The pervasive aesthetic
notion that paintings ought to be fat (regardless o their substrates)
resulted in various treatments to control the movement o wooden
supportsmovement that would damage the paint layer. A com-
mon way to impose fatness on a deormed panel (something that
cannot in actuality be ully achieved) was to remove hal or more
o the thickness o the support and to attach a rigid structure, called
a cradle. Probably the most extreme intervention was to remove the
wooden support completely and to transer the paint layer to canvas.
In more recent times, with the growth o proessional conservation
approaches, less-invasive treatments have been developed that
respect the original materials and construction o a painting.
The Expertise Gap
Conservation as a proession grew out o crats with centuries
o experience in manuacturing. The rst generations o restorers
were mostly trained in workshops as apprentices, and they had the
strong hand skills necessary to make objects appear as new. With the
development o the conservation proession, training and education
moved rom the workshop to schools and academic programs. At
present, most conservation programs are based within universities.
Cracked, Warped,and Cradled!Training in the StructuralConservation of PanelPaintings
By Foekje Boersma and Sue Ann Chui
20 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 24 , Number 1 2009| News in Conservation
How many of us pay attention to the words oil on panelwhen
reading a label next to a painting hanging in a museum? The
implications o this short phrase or the preservation o the painting
are unknown to most o us. Paintings conservators are an exception.
For these specialists, the conservation challenges presented by
paintings on wood panels are all too clear. Unortunately, there areonly a ew experts worldwide who restore these works, and even
ewer new specialists entering the eld.
To address the pressing training needs in the structural
conservation o panel paintings, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the
Getty Conservat