Changing Climate Management Strategies

Sustainable Collection Environments and Monitoring Object Response

February 5–9, 2024

London, England, United Kingdom

Co-organized with the Victoria and Albert Museum

Application period is closed. For questions, please contact MCE@getty.edu.

Cultural heritage institutions worldwide are increasingly under pressure to operate in a more sustainable manner in response to the global climate crisis, symptoms of which include rising energy costs and government mandates to reduce carbon footprints.

Recent environmental guidance in the heritage field has also signaled a shift away from prescriptive narrow ranges of temperature and relative humidity towards the adoption of broader environmental parameters suitable for many classes of objects. However, many heritage institutions have been reluctant to adopt these wider conditions due to a lack of evidence-based risk analysis for climate-induced damage and limited expertise on the sustainable management of the collection environment.

The workshop will address obstacles in developing and implementing more adaptive environmental management strategies in museums.

• Preworkshop: Online activities, including lectures about risk assessment and environmental monitoring, access to essential readings, and a discussion forum.
• Day 1: Introduces the changing environmental and political contexts in which museums operate and includes discussion of environmental guidance, government regulation, sustainability, leadership, and a gallery tour addressing damage, change, and value.
• Day 2: Examines the key roles of life and cost cycle assessments as tools to support decision making, presentation of 3 sustainability case studies, discussion of the impact of loans processes on sustainability, and introduces material properties and responses, damage mechanisms, and the proofed fluctuation concept.
• Day 3: Discussion and demonstration of object monitoring techniques, including acoustic emission monitoring and speckle interferometry, to examine environmentally induced change. Focuses on the collaboration between Getty Conservation Institute and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) to monitor change of “witness” objects from the V&A’s incredibly diverse collection—applied arts, decorative arts, design—exposed to their innovative and practical environmental management approaches.
• Day 4: Summary of a suite of tools for analyzing environmental data, presentation of 3 sustainability case studies, exercises on risk assessment and life cycle assessment, and discussion of mechanical and non-mechanical environmental management strategies.
• Day 5: Presentation of 3 sustainability case studies, followed by participant discussion on the practical application of the workshop curriculum for a range of heritage contexts.

The workshop will be delivered in person over five days in London. Supplementary online components will be made available before and after the workshop to deepen participant engagement and broaden the overall audience.

The international teaching team of Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) staff and other esteemed heritage conservation professionals have extensive experience in environmental management and object monitoring. Workshop instructors include the following as well as others:

• Vincent Laudato Beltran, Scientist, GCI
• Pedro Gaspar, Head of Conservation, V&A
• Michał Łukomski, Senior Scientist, GCI
• Ana Muñoz, Head Registrar, V&A
• Melissa Painter, Head of Sustainability, V&A
• Bhavesh Shah, Preventive Conservation and Data Scientist, V&A
• Marcin Strojecki, Adjunct Professor, Jerzy Haber Institute
• David Thickett, Senior Conservation Scientist, English Heritage
• Sarah VanSnick, Lead Preventive Conservator, V&A
• Cecilia Winter, Project Specialist, GCI

February 5–9, 2024

The workshop will be conducted in English. Candidates must have good technical knowledge and command of the English language.

• October 6, 2023: Deadline for submission of online application and 2-page CV (sent to MCE@getty.edu)
• October 25, 2023: By this date, applicants will receive an email notifying them if they have been selected to participate in the workshop and, if applicable, receive financial assistance. A waiting list will be established for those not selected.
• November 10, 2023: Deadline for participants to submit payment of the workshop tuition fee

Applicants who do not submit payment by the deadline will have their registration canceled. Available spaces will then be offered to those on the waiting list.

For further information or questions, please contact MCE@getty.edu

Getty Conservation Institute’s Managing Collection Environments (MCE) Initiative addresses the sustainable management of exhibition, storage, and transit environments for museums, galleries, archives, and libraries. It combines scientific research and fieldwork to investigate the response of artist’s and historic materials to temperature and relative humidity, as well as light, shock, and vibration. Equally important for the initiative is an understanding of the institutional decision-making process when developing policies and strategies for environmental management.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is the world’s leading museum of art, design and performance, housing a collection of over 2.8 million objects that document 5,000 years of human creativity from across six continents. The Museum holds many of UK’s designated National Collections, including sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, textiles and furniture, and including extensive collections of prints, drawings, posters, photographs and portrait miniatures. It is also home to the National Art Library, which holds the UK’s most comprehensive public reference library for the fine and decorative arts, as well as special collections of the art of the book ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day.