Museums team provides support to protect the past

This week, Orkney Islands Council’s Museum Service organised a conservation and collection care training programme, funded by their Esmée Fairbairn Foundation grant, for heritage centres and organisations across the isles.

The course was run across three days and had attendees from Westray, Hoy, Tomb of the Eagles, and Sanday, as well as several others. Over the course of the training, the participants were introduced, through a mix of presentations and hands-on practical tasks, to the core principles of collections care, conservation and the ethics that should be considered when working with artefacts within museum and heritage settings.

Collections care, as the name suggests, is the process of looking after a museum or heritage collection to protect and preserve it for future generations. Its scope is far wider than many expect, covering areas such as appropriate storage conditions, movement control, pest management, environmental conditions, artefact handling, material selection, displaying objects, hazardous materials, collection cleaning, lighting levels, and packaging.

Conservation is often considered to be a part of collections care, and in some ways, it is, but it generally is regarded as a distinct discipline. It can be divided into two strands. Remedial conservation involves working directly with objects to repair damage or stabilise deterioration. Preventive conservation, on the other hand, focuses on anticipating and mitigating risks such as environmental factors that could cause harm to objects within a collection.

The course was led by Orkney based, Icon accredited conservator, Hana Bristow. Hana holds an MA in Conservation of Archaeological & Museum Objects, and has previously worked at the University of Cambridge Museums, Science Museum Group, The National Museum of the Royal Navy, and the National Trust, but now is a freelance working in and around Orkney.

Ellen Pesci, Social History Curator for OIC’s Museum Service, said:

“I’m pleased to see this all come together, it has taken a lot of effort to make this happen, from working with Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to fund the training, to organising and helping Hana shape the course around the needs of our colleagues across the heritage sector within Orkney.

“Accessing this type of training is always challenging, as most courses are hands-on and therefore require travel to mainland Britain, which is often unaffordable for many organisations. By offering it here, we can share our professional knowledge locally, and we hope it will encourage closer collaboration across the sector.

“Ultimately, we are all working toward the same goal, to preserve and care for Orkney’s rich heritage for future generations. The more we support one another, the more successful we will be in achieving that shared ambition.

“Again, thank you to Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for making this training possible, and I’m confident it will have a lasting benefit to the heritage sector within Orkney.”

Additional information:

Icon is an industry body for conservators, and being Icon accredited means:

“An Accredited Conservator-Restorer (ACR) demonstrates to clients, employers and peers that an individual has an in-depth knowledge of conservation, a high degree of competence, sound judgement and a deep understanding of the principles which underpin their practice, by showing that they are proficient across Icon’s professional standards in conservation.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VHSF0tVisc

The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation aims to ‘improve our natural world, secure a fairer future and strengthen the bonds in communities in the UK. We unlock change by contributing everything we can alongside people and organisations with brilliant ideas who share our goals’.

This includes additional funding to organisations they fund in response to the rising cost of living. The Foundation also provide social and impact investment for organisations with the aim of creating social and environmental impact.

Find out more at www.esmeefairbairn.org.uk

The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund is managed by the Museums Association on behalf of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.