Folding, stitching, turning

Putting Conservation Into Perspective

Bibliographic Data

ID2390980
AuthorsTitika Malkogeorgou (University College London, UK, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume16
Issue4
Pages441-455
Publication date2011-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1359183511424829
OpenAlexW2325330070
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited21

The Victoria & Albert Museum marked a turning point in museum policy in Britain in conceiving the modern museum as an instrument of modern education. Through its cultural programme based on education and the relationship between objects and people, the V&A was established as an applied and decorative arts museum. As a source of object-specific knowledge, it has constructed a comprehensive canon around applied arts and their makers, shaped almost exclusively in its own context. In museum practice, conservation is part of the construction and transmission of knowledge through a distinctive relationship to objects and choices made in the studio, guided by a set of ethical values and a hands-on approach. This article follows the conservation of an 18th-century mantua (a 17th-18th-century court dress) for display in the V&A galleries and offers an insight into a process of continuous conflict between the uncovering and reconstruction of truth that takes place in the conservation studio, and the relationship to the object's biography in tracing its original form. The author also examines the preservation of cultural material as a way of materializing the self and contextualizing social activity

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Object (grammar · Sociology · Studio · The arts · Visual arts · Computer Science · Conservation Techniques and Studies · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Museums and Cultural Heritage

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