Conservation – an effort balancing between nostalgia and documentation

• Main Author: George Brock-Nannestad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Association CeROArt 2013-10-01
• Series: CeROArt : Conservation, Exposition, Restauration d'Objets d'Art
• Subjects: preservation; conservation; restoration; context; collection; utility
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/3629

Conservation is a highly skilled, scientific, and artistic activity that aims to preserve for future users as much as possible of the total presence and impression of an artifact. Despite historical differences in approach, this is the goal of conservation. Requestors of conservation may have particular wishes, but the conservator has knowledge that permits arguments against extreme approaches and procedures. The paper argues that all conservation and restoration is in reality directed to preserve a predefined function or utility and for archival or museal collections, this utility has been transformed into one of being a member in such an environment. Hence, all work on such objects may be classified as maintenance and repair of a utility.