Emerging Conservation Professionals Network (ECPN)
As one of two ECPN Communications Officers, I work with my fellow ECPN officers to offer support and resources, plan events, and create community for emerging conservation professionals. My co-officer and I manage the ECPN Facebook Page, interview conservation/conservation-adjacent professionals and create posts for ECPN’s Humans of Conservation Instagram account, and manage the AIC ECPN Community Page. I also spent part of my term as Communications Officer managing a translation project for essential AIC documents in order to make them more accessible to ESL conservation professionals. As a collective, the officers and I plan ECPN-specific events at the AIC Annual Meeting to provide a friendly and supportive space for ECPs. In addition to those events, we also organize a community partnership project in which volunteers of the conference join the ECPN officers to volunteer and provide preservation assistance to a local cultural institution.
ECPN Officers 2022-2023
Preservation PopUp! and Conservation Clinic
Photo: Stephenie Bailey
Preservation PopUp! consultation with paper conservator, Anisha Gupta, and LACE conservator, Brittany Murray
The Winterthur Museum conservation team holds monthly conservation clinics in which the conservators consult with community members about their personal objects. Conservators discuss condition concerns, provide historical context, and offer care advice for the individual’s object(s). At these monthly clinics community members come to the museum for clinic but to make the concept of clinic more accessible to individuals who live farther away, don’t have vehicles, etc., the museum piloted Preservation PopUp! this past fall. This first pop-up clinic was held in collaboration with the J. Lewis Crozer Library at their location in Chester, PA. For clinics I assist with both the objects and paper tables.
Cloister Project and Art of Conservation, Toledo Museum of Art
Cloister project participants applying gel poultice
I assisted with two major conservation projects as an objects intern at the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA). Art of Conservation was an exhibition that consisted of an on-view lab, video content discussing various conservation projects at TMA, and introductory information to the field of conservation. The conservation team and I worked in this open lab space and fielded questions from museum visitors. For many, this on-view conservation lab was their first introduction to conservation.
The Cloister Project involved inviting Toledo community members to join the TMA conservation team in cleaning the stone arcades in their Cloister Gallery with a gel poultice. We had participants of all ages and with a variety of interests in conservation. This project even provided some first-time conservation work for a few emerging conservation professionals. It was a special project that both brought community together in a beloved museum space and provided essential career opportunities/experiences. Art of Conservation and the Cloister Project complimented each other well in that they spread awareness of conservation work and provided opportunities for community members to openly engage with the work of a conservator.