Shifting Perspectives on Damage, Change, and Value

Hi, good morning and good afternoon or good night to everyone. Uh welcome to our uh seminar shifting perspectives uh on damage, change, and value. So, this is kind of like a continuation of a discussion we had uh at the AIC uh conference. And before we start, I just wanted to thank uh the cool organizers uh of this discussion, that is the micro fading tester uh international discussion group, and the preventive uh chair network. And I would like also to thank uh the Getty for doing this all the infrastructure for uh for the the webinar. Uh I also like to introduce and thank uh my co-moderator, uh Vincent Beltran. Uh and Vincent was the one actually who approached [clears throat] me uh with idea for this this session. And and I was really immediately super excited about it uh because when I first joined the the MC Managing Collections Environment Initiative at the GCI, I began working with working very closely with scientists, and they were using highly advanced uh super precise tools like micro fading testing, like acoustic emission monitoring, uh nano indenters, and they were kind they were really good at detecting material change change in the in the objects and in the art even before it became visible to the human eye. And one thing that struck me uh in our conversations and during this work, it it was that it was often framed as we are monitoring and assessing damage. And slowly I realized that for the material scientist, words like damage or failure, they didn't necessarily carry the same weight that they do for conservators. But I knew that the effect of saying damage and framing it like this would have in our fields. After all, as conservators, our goal is to avoid, minimize, and prevent damage. So when we are saying that damage is equal any material or physical change, in fact we are we are risking to and forgetting that conservation it's first and foremost about preserving value and significance and not just preserving the stuff. And of course, this is not a new concern. Questions about the relationship between material change, damage, value, they have been long been present in conservation theory. But when the approaches with risk management were introduced by Jonathan Ashley-Smith, Stefan Michalski, and Rob Waller that we are going we have the pleasure of having here also today, they they helped to bring this distinction into preventive conservation practice and focusing the attention on the consequences of material change on the values and significance of what we seek to preserve. Yet, even after that reframing, the conversation often became the one about acceptable damage or acceptable acceptable loss. Which continued to bother me because we were still operating within a framework centered on preventing loss, focusing on what we going to lose. Um, and when our priority or our uh, goal is to avoid loss uh, or to accept or at least cope with the level of our loss, our decisions uh, they're influenced by loss aversion and uh, risk aversion. Um, and for a period of time that I was working at the Getty and thinking about the workshops that we were going to put uh, together and offer, I I was just thinking uh, we just need to convince conservators and collection care professionals more more broadly to be less risk averse or the ways that uh, we could at least demonstrate that the loss was not going to be that significant or that the risk the risk magnitude was smaller than our initial intuition. Uh, but over the time I realized that loss aversion and risk aversion they're not exclusive to conservators. Uh, loss aversion it's a human kind of cognitive bias. And research shows that losses weight uh, more heavily on us than equivalent gains. So, it's it's not surprising that our field uh, where change is often seen as inherently negative, we tend to privilege material stability to prevent loss over uh, use, access or transformation. Um, even more in an environment I guess, where prof- conservation professionals are often personally accountable for their decisions. So, who's taking the risk is not the the institution, it's the individuals that are taking the risk. So, the the the the loss aversion becomes even higher. But, we are seeing a shift in the in the field, a shift away from understanding preservation solely as material protection and towards thinking about significance and how the values that we attach to to objects evolve over time. So, this session brings together a set of perspectives that reflect on this shift. And I hope these talks help us to move beyond focusing on what we might lose, so we can start asking, "What can we gain? What do we have to gain?" So, this brings us to today's presentations. We have four presentations and five speakers, and I'm particularly happy with this lineup because these are people whose works have sparked, challenged, and supported my own interest in the subject over the years. It's a real privilege to have all of them here today with us. And without further ado, I always wanted to say that, I would like to invite our first speakers to the screen. Rob Waller from Protect Heritage and Jane Henderson from Cardiff University. And the stage is yours. Thank you. >> Great. Great. Thank you, Cecilia, for the introduction and and for your broader introduction to what we're all concerned about here, which I think was really excellent. So, and now to Jane. >> So, today what we want to do is explore a little bit about how insights from psychology, behavioral economics, and sociology can reshape conservation practice. It's going to be an absolute fly-through, but what we're going to hopefully cover is that conservation is not just a technical practice, it's a social, ethical, and political practice. >> Success depends not only on expertise, but on how we think, frame problems, and work with others. Our key argument is simple. In addition to our responsibilities to provide effective solutions to technical problems, we need to think beyond technical puzzles and strive to discover solutions to social mysteries. >> So, just like Cecilia was saying about the psychology of loss, there are so many insights available in psychology and in sociology that we think can really enrich the conservation field. And I think that they're not just philosophies, they're they can offer practical tools for us to enhance our thinking and also even our foundational understanding of heritage values. And I think that the insights that we can gain have real relevance for personal change and the expanded possibilities for the profession to advocate effectively for their goals whilst working with others to deliver it on shared outcomes. >> We will talk through just a small selection of the theories and concepts that we have found valuable and bring these together with the question of puzzles and mysteries. First, let's consider how we think about risks and benefits uh because as Cecilia pointed out, we have what psychologists call a prospect theory where we give more weight to uh feeling a loss than we do to feeling a benefit. But, we want to give equal weight to benefits and risks if we're really going to be serving society as we might aspire to. Uh so, we thought we would want an equivalent to the agents of change or agents of deterioration to describe benefits. And we call these kinds of benefits. But, what might those benefits be? For a start, they might be emotional benefits, a sense of place, functions, economic, aesthetic, educational, and so on. We should note here, just like the risks, you could have more than just like for risks, you could have more than one specific risk, you could have more than one specific benefit in each of these broad categories. If we have to frame the benefits and risks of an event or activity, then suddenly options attract both benefits and risks to our minds. Nothing starts from a zero base. Instead of us taking opposing perspectives with other people that we're negotiating with, we could both begin to think about what the opportunities and consequences are without either looking like we are losing something or we have or or we have not any alternative being entirely risk-free. >> So, by taking away the idea imagined idea of the risk-free alternative, you know, the idea of things safely in store, what we're saying is all options should have the consequences of both the gains and losses, not just described individually, but collectively. And that should help us not to discriminate in favor of one option that might feel emotionally safer. But also, if we encourage everyone in in the in in that project to get involved and acknowledge their concerns and their opportunities on an equal basis, it should also decrease the perception of lack of control and of conservatives holding the risks and of other people holding the benefits. And I think what we would like to say is that we need to practice the language of benefits. I don't think it's something conservatives have been good enough at. We need to think in every situation not only to say about what the risks, but really practice describing who answer the question, who benefits for any conservation proposal. And there's going to be layers of benefits that be uncovered by such a question. So, for example, you might go for grants in to get a small conservation project. So, there will be benefits for you, but for your colleagues, but also for your museum, the geographical community, and even your professional community. And it's about seeing all of those layers. >> Inspired by the work of Kahneman and Tversky, among many others, it's helpful to think about types of thinking, conveniently termed type one and type two. Type one thinking is also known as system [snorts] one or intuition, feeling, heuristic, or using your gut. And it is subconscious, associative, automatic, and fast. So, it associates things like smells and feelings and sounds and information and that sort of thing. It's subconscious in the same way our vision is. As soon as we open our eyes, we see what we see. We don't have to think about are we seeing something? Now, in contrast, type two, also called reason or rationality or using your head, is conscious. Uh we need to know that we're doing it. It's serial or it's done step-by-step thinking. Do I need to add this to that or whatever? It's effortful. We need to kind of force ourselves to do it. And compared to type one thinking, which is instant, it tends to be slow. Now, heuristic or analytical thinking, the idea of a logical left and emotional right brain is now mostly but not completely thought to be a myth. Still, as we just saw, our brains work in two distinct ways. So, we feel it is okay to illustrate this using a split-brain image despite accepting the various parts of both sides of our brain will be involved in either type of thinking. We always want to use all of our brain power, but call on different powers for different tasks. We use intuitive thinking or type one for creative work in risk and benefit identification, for empathizing with people who might experience the risks and benefits, and all that sort of associative uh thinking and creative thinking. And we force reasoning thinking or type two for risk and benefit quantification. If we're going to be able to put some relative numbers on these things to balance them, that requires some type two thinking. >> So, in conservation, we basically see the risks everywhere, but we don't necessarily manage the hierarchy of risks very well. I absolutely adore this photograph from a museum box. If you can't quite work it out, it's a crepe paper dress. It was a kid's costume that they wore to an important event in UK history. And inside of that box, there was a sticky blender trap, and the conservator was so worried about pests eating this crepe paper dress that they placed a sticky trap inside of the box. Hopefully, you can see that this standing back that this wasn't a good and holistic view of risks. And so, I think that there is some lessons for us about how we see and perceive the risks in what we do. Because as conservators, we always there when things get broken. We see the damaged objects. We spend time with things that are broken, and often we'll have small a strong emotional response to the damage and to their repair. And this is going to impact on our feelings, our emotional thinking about risk as well as our logical risk. Because if a new activity is pro- proposed, we can think [snorts] about the analytical calculation of the risk, but that emotional um baggage is also there with us. And that specially when if we're going into a conversation or exchange where we feel that all the consequences of any decision will sit with the conservator with us. And we see that a proposed activity is a new set of risks, then we might be quite tempted to go into adversarial mode and think, "Well, how little can I concede? How much How little of these new risks can I let in? How can I negotiate them down?" And I think that this is this puts us in quite a difficult and confrontational position. And I think if we could try to recognize um and deploy our risks and benefits calculator and identify both our emotional and logical thinking here, we might be able to manage our responses to proposals in a a more constructive way. >> But if you recognize that the perceived risk might not be as serious as it first feels, then what intellectual exercise can you use to help you rethink and still offer wise counsel? We would argue that you should stand back, literally and intellectually, and ask yourself, "Am I seeing the whole picture? And what picture do other people see?" We call this broad framing. If you take a broader frame than considering an individual item at risk, and think about all of the risks across all of the collections over many years, then you should be able to move away from defaulting to a defensive stance and negotiating compromise. You could enter a space where you look at the the horizon and see you're all walking toward a common goal. >> Which takes us to compromising and optimizing. All too often, the goals of conservation are presented as a negotiation of a compromise with other activities of our our organization. And we think this is quite an unhelpful formulation, which arises from fairly understandable biases. What we think you should do is reframe to standing back onto a higher-level goals, like the societal benefits of an activity. We think doing that will help us to optimize our conservation strategies, rather than enter the more confrontational approach of compromise, that always suggests winners and losers. So, in compromise, we partly achieve our operational goals. Compromise leads to concessions and a sense that everyone has to sacrifice part of their agenda. Yet, many conservation concerns demand critical specifications. So, modifying a requirement by changing a specification from far outside the critical threshold to simply a bit outside the critical threshold is often of little or no benefit to the collection. An alternative to compromise is optimizing towards a common goal. And skillful and responsible collections management within museums, libraries, and archives often involves developing, preserving, and using collections for the benefit of humanity. So, you would think that in those institutions we should always be able to find a cooperative and collaborative teamwork approach to to deliver these duties. And yet, um our described experience often defies such optimism because somehow the staff find themselves in conflict with others while seeking to deliver their part of the mandate. In a nutshell, we can either work focused on our concerns alone, or we can join forces around a common goal to hit achieve higher-level objectives. >> This leads us to consider a deficit-based versus asset-based mindset. Deficit-based thinking encourages us to think about improving systems, uh rectifying deficiencies. It tends to being a blame-based system that focuses attention on what can be lost and by implication encourages us to allocate the blame for a certain or potential issue to others or internalize it ourselves. But, someone is going to be to blame. In some situations, such as responding to a power failure, it is necessary and appropriate to take this deficit-based approach. In other situations, its problem-solving focus can feel polarizing and demotivational. It is normal conservation practice to imagine future risks and preemptively manage them. Combining this with the common misperception that use necessarily increases risk creates problematic mindset that conservation and access must be in conflict. This fosters a mindset of focusing on problems. That is, adopting a deficit-based thinking approach. We believe this makes deficit-based thinking an easy trap for risk-focused conservators to be caught in. >> So, another of the tools that we're recommending is this asset-based thinking approach. It encourages a positivity bias that's moving from a concession mindset to an optimization one. And what we're encouraging you to do is to look for the people and the things that help take us where we need to be. This you has to be understood in combination with this broad framing. And our focus then can shift from what we might be characterizing as wrong, such as adverse relative humidity, or the children are touching the collections, to what could be positively valued. Perhaps it's an increase of visitors in a rainy day, or children enjoying collections. >> Just to explore this perspective idea a little bit more, perceived importance depends on perspective. In this image, values are arbitrary, but reasonably representative. If my primary responsibility is the conservation, and I see many objects after some instances of damage, then I might perceive the damage as being disproportionately large as a concern. In contrast, I may fail to recognize how large the reduction in social benefit of not using an item might be. >> So, a question you could ask to use this tool is, am I recognizing and labeling my perspective? So, am I recognizing what I'm doing as being just my perspective? But, are we also doing the same to others? Understanding what their perspective is. So, which way are they looking at this pie chart when we're negotiating and collaborating? Because if we expand to other people's perspectives, we can broaden our sources of feedback, which will improve our decision-making. And that leads us on to the question that we hope is the key to take on from our talk. Are you solving puzzles or mysteries? >> Puzzles are structured problems. They have all the pieces, even if they are hard to assemble. They might best be solved by hunkering down with a calculator and blinders on. Mysteries are different. They evolve over time, contain contradictions, and cannot be solved through purposeful effort from a single perspective. Instead, solutions to mysteries must be discovered through combined efforts. >> So, a puzzle-like model is suitable for problems that are complicated. So, that there's lots of features, but you can understand the relationships between them. And even sometimes there's a little bit of limited complexity. But, where you have greater degree degrees of complexity, you can understand that as a mystery. And in a mystery situation, any stakeholder can change their opinions or even their underlying values as a result of self-reflection, reflecting on opportunities, as things change through time, and so on. So, we should see those more social engagements as mysteries rather than puzzles. And do not worry that they're not puzzles, just embrace the mystery. >> We might believe, or at least think and act as though we believe, that the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything can be thought found through rational analysis, provided we can properly link together enough puzzles. You may laugh at this seeming foolishness, but we would ask you to take time to reflect on this. The question whether you are completely free of this delusion in all situations. In contrast, mysteries defy representation in fixed model structures. We want to see them as fluidly and continually emerging. When we treat conservation as a puzzle, we expect a single correct answer resulting from established models and hard data. We will sometimes choose to address a problem as a puzzle, despite knowing that that mindset will limit engagement with all stakeholders and ignore potentially valuable perspectives. Still, puzzle solving is generally the best approach when trying to solve a well-defined technical problem, where a focus on the deficit-based thinking will be best. However, where we're dealing with broader issues, where multiple stakeholders need to be involved, where differing senses of value must be accommodated, and where uncertain futures need to be considered, then mysteries I it is mysteries that we have to consider, and their solutions need to be discovered. >> So, where the goal is to go beyond fixing a discrete failing in the system, but instead to let community build new capacities, including the capacities to use heritage in new new ways, then an asset-based thinking strategy is needed. This approach expands what conservation can achieve and strengthens our ability to work collaboratively towards shared goals. We can make conservation success stories by solving technical puzzles, and that is sometimes a necessity. But the huge strategic victory of conservation best serving society will not be achieved by solving technical puzzles, but by learning to live with and act within mysteries. If we respond dynamically, rather than seek permanent solutions, we can reflect a core conservation principle of not closing off future possibilities. We should try to maximize benefits for present and future societies. Personally, I'm really tired of the adage that conservation and access are in conflict. They are not. It is not present risk versus future benefit, but benefits across time. As long as uncertainties exist, opportunities exist. It allows goals to shift, new perspectives to emerge, and shared understandings to develop. Think of it that we're not solving conservation problems once and for all, but we're continuously navigating evolving situations. >> Both types of thinking are important, equally important, we might argue. While we are awake, we can only do one type of thinking at a time, for the most part. Although we can flip back and forth between types of thinking, true integration seems to be a more subconscious process, usually happening overnight during sleep. That, of course, is the basis for the common saying, "I'll have to sleep on it." What we have found most important is to be able to be aware of finding ourselves locked into only one type of thinking. Failing to go back and forth between open and creative type one thinking and closed and analytical type two thinking is what is important. It's that back and forth that's essential for us to leave our comfort zone and travel to where the magic can happen. And that is our presentation. So, on behalf of Jane and myself, thank you for listening. >> Many thanks Robin and Jane for your presentation. Uh probably great insights. Uh at this point, I'd like to invite Marina to share her presentation and join us on screen. So, just a quick introduction. Uh Marina Pugliese is a director of the Museums of Culture and also the head of public art both in Villa. >> Can you see this? >> is yours. It looks great. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you Vincent and thank you Vincent and Cecilia for the kind invitation. So, Robert and Jane talked about preservation and access. If they they ask if they are in conflict, and I want to approach and analyze if display also and access are in conflict. And this through the example of the work we are doing at the Museum of Cultures in Milan. Uh I'll begin with a quotation by Robert Smithson, American artist, who in 1972 for the document curated by Harald Szeemann, instead of participating, uh delivered a statement basically highlighting the fact that museums, comparing museums to asylums and jail and jails, and by stating that when a work of art is in a gallery loses its charge and becomes a portable object or a surface disengaged from the outside world. And then he also highlighted the fact that in museums works of art are neutralized, ineffective, abstracted, safe, and politically lobotomized lobotomized. Um so this speaks volumes, especially I would say in the so-called museums of cultures like Mudec. So we began thinking with our curation to with our curator to the display case. And what is the effect that the display case has on heritage? Of course it's a symbolic device like the frame and the pedestal. Um its goal is to signal that what we are exhibiting has an exceptional value. Of course, there's also the importance of protecting the artwork from from dust, from uh and from access because at the end the display case protects but separates, filters, and distances from the public. And so it embodies a paradox, the paradox of museums as exhibition machines because museums ensure conservation but also they neutralize, reshape, and constrain the meaning of what is on display. And this is particularly evident with museum of cultures when of course uh some objects are completely deployed of their original function, a drum which is not played, a mask which is not worn. And uh and there's another aspect which is interesting up to me under a psychological viewpoint that the display case is also, you know, has an an impact on the legibility of the object and it it functions also as a mirror. So, it's a mirror of the person who is looking at. So, there's also an interesting effect on the topic of the gaze. So, let's get to what we did at MoMu. So, we decided with the curators to organize an exhibition which we entitled exposure art culture fashion in and out of the showcase. On the right, you can see the cover of the magazine. We produce a magazine MoMu United instead of doing catalogs because we don't have a big space for doing exhibitions and so the magazine allows us to explode the topic beyond the exhibition itself. And for every exhibition we produce a monumental work of art for the agora of the museum which is a free space. So, it's there's no ticketing there and in this case we invited Mariana Castillo Deball who is a Mexican artist who studies as a studied as an archaeologist and we have a very important collection of pre-Columbian textiles that Mariana had access to and she decided to work on the this vitrine. The museum was designed by David Chipperfield as it is basically a huge display case itself. So, it was a symbolic of the topic we were talking about. This This is somewhat, you know, the the key image of the whole exhibition. On the left, you see a work by Candida Höfer of the ethnology of the museum ethnographic museum in Berlin and you see two conservators curators, we don't know, who are completely covered with gloves and are analyzing some objects. And it's it's somewhat very symbolic of how is the western approach towards non-western art. On the right, we have an object, and we will get to this at the end of my presentation. We we have an object from a collection which had been recently donated to the museum, and that we put in anoxic to disinfect it. So, the the first approach is when we talk about others people culture, do we have to disinfect them? Do we have to wear gloves? Do we have to keep them at distance? And this is is a an approach which is interesting to talk about because even though many, you know, the display case is is a western invention, it is very much used in in a dispro- in a disproportionate way in ethnographic museums. So, while in in like I was director of the museum of 20th century art in Milan, we would have sculptures outside the vitrine. In in the museum of cultures, basically everything nearly all all of the heritage is inside the vitrines, as you can see here. So, for this exhibition, we also invited Theo Shetou, who is an artist, a Dutch-British artist of Ethiopian descent, to think about our collections, and produce a work in dialogue with the collections. And Theo decided to work on the topic of the truck of the crocodile because in Italy in the Renaissance, crocodiles were often installed in in the vaults of churches, but it's they were African crocodiles. And so, basically, he decided to basically uh swap the viewpoint on the collection upside down so that the crocodile on the top would would mean like Africa is looking at the way Western people are are displaying Africa. And so you can see that various elements in the collection and at the end of the first image you also see a taxidermic uh crocodile of the Renaissance which is part of a um of a Wunderkammer uh of a Milanese Wunderkammer of the 17th century. And so you can see that some elements have been turned upside down. Um the rest of the exhibition I'll be quick on it. Basically uh was a collection of display cases of different uh moments in history and different styles with uh uh at their inside uh collections of objects selected through different criteria. Might it be typology, might it be the the origin of the collection, might it be the function, might it be uh their uh material. Um And we also dedicated a section to contemporary art because contemporary art has worked a lot on the display case as a topic. You see on the right a work by Mark Dion, Sam Durant. And we produced a work by Manuela Ben Hamuda uh literally reflecting on how Western world has related towards other people's histories and the vitrine. The end of the exhibition was a small votive shrine uh as many are present all over Latin America without the um the image inside the the sacred image inside. And and we ended by saying is the empty the empty display case the end of the museum. So let's get back to the object on on right, the Diangle mask uh which is uh which is under the plastic uh bag. So, I'll go back to the collection. I want to show you 2 minutes of a video about the workshop that we did on the occasion of the exhibition, if it's possible to share it. >> Why are we having a workshop? So, I was approached by Marina, director of Mudec and Sara, a while ago to join the scientific board of Mudec. And part of that was linked perhaps to this offer of a collection to be acquired, to be donated to the museum. [music] I mean, basically, we're talking about questions of curatorial museum ethics. In particular, this notion of uncertainty. So, our kind of title for the workshop is curating uncertain ethics. As we'll all know, there are many ethical codes and legal frameworks within which museums, you know, particularly acquire collections. But certainly ethically, it's often actually difficult [music] to ascertain the status of an object, particularly when it's come as in this collection from private collector who's passed away. The estate is effectively offering to them to the [music] museum. And also this notion of well, what is ethics? Is ethics a code like the ICOM code of ethics for museums for instance, where it's a kind of a a guide for kind of best practice in the sector, or is ethics as most ethicists would say, actually a process? >> [music] [music] >> So basically, we received a proposal for this donation and it's a recent collection and there's a law in Europe which says that before 1970s, if the works were collected before sorry after 1970s, you cannot accept a collection. It is complicated in terms of provenance and this basically renders the situation very complicated in which most museum don't accept this collection which end up in the secondary market. We decided to accept the risk. We decided to analyze the collection with communities of interest and source communities to divide it to give back the works which had to give to be given back, to keep the ones which were safe and okay to keep in terms of ethics and provenance and also to use a part of it with communities in theater representation and for contemporary artworks. So basically, we tried to have an approach which was not you know which was open to a different idea to to preservation, display and access. Thank you. >> Thank you very much Marina. Very always very insightful to hear you. Next, I'd like to invite to the screen Josefa Orrego from the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. >> Hello. Firstly, I would like to thank the organizers of this webinar for inviting me to speak today. It is a pleasure for me to participate. In this presentation, I will share the experience of a collaborative documentation project called Catálogo Razonado that was developed at the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino over the last 3 years. Through this initiative, members of indigenous communities currently living in Chile have been invited to engage directly with collections created by their ancestors. And by acknowledging the voices and knowledge of these communities in relation to the collections safeguarded by the museum, our understanding of what constitutes damage, change, and value has shifted substantially. And this in turn has influenced the way decisions are made regarding the preservation within the institution. So, the Catálogo Razonado project was developed in response to a long-standing concern within the museum because while the institution safeguards a significant collection of objects created by indigenous peoples, many of the voices connected to them were not fully represented in the documentation or exhibition narratives. And the project was therefore conceived as a space for dialogue and collaboration with indigenous communities in Chile. The aim was not only to enrich the documentation of the collections, but also to understand how these objects continue to be valued by their communities today. In this first stage, the participating communities included the Mapuche people, mainly located in the south of the country, uh the Atacameño Likan-antay communities from the north of Chile, and the Rapanui people from the insular territory. And a series of interviews were carried out during the development of the Catálogo Razonado. And as the project progressed, it became clear that the new information and knowledge shared about the collections had direct implications for their conservation and management. And for these reasons, specific questions on these topics were gradually incorporated into the interviews. And these questions addressed issues such as appropriate levels of intervention, suitable restoration materials, possible restrictions on access and display, and preferences regarding exhibition and storage. The discussions held during the interviews highlighted that concepts such as damage or deterioration are not fixed categories, but value-based judgments shaped by cultural frameworks. For these presentations, I will only focus on some of the results obtained through our work with Mapuche communities as they clearly illustrate this idea. One example emerged during conversations about Mapuche silver jewelry with two silversmiths. They explained that the tarnish present on some silver objects is tangible evidence that these pieces fulfill the role of protecting the person who wore them from negative energies. This was especially relevant for silver jewelry associated with Machi, the spiritual and healing authorities within Mapuche communities. This understanding raised important questions about cleaning practices. If tarnish is understood not as damage or material change caused by pollutants and humidity, but rather as part of an object's biography or significance, then removing it completely may also mean removing a layer of value. And these discussions became even more complex in the case of the chemamull, which means wooden person in the Mapuche language. And you can see seven of them here. They are currently on permanent display in the Chile before Chile exhibition, and became a central focus during conversations with Mapuche representatives. The chemamull are these large wooden sculptures that traditionally mark the burial sites of Mapuche people. These figures accompanied the journey of the deceased into the afterlife, and represented their spiritual presence and connection to the land. Traditionally, chemamull were visited by members of the community who would speak to them and offer them food and drink. And even in the case of a chemamull representing an important or wise person, people would come to ask for guidance. But from the colonial period onwards, many of these were destroyed or removed from their original contexts. Some eventually became part of museum collections, such as those at the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. And unfortunately, the exact provenance of the seven chemamull in the collection is not fully known. But one of the key points raised during the interviews with Mapuche representatives was that chemamull were made to decay. Their intended life cycle is to naturally decompose and return to the land, a process that is fundamental in Mapuche culture. So, from this perspective, their removal constitutes a violent act towards the deceased and a profound disconnection from their intended purpose. In the words of Hernán Mariano Marin now, you can see in the picture, their presence in a museum represents a rupture, a communication that is no longer flowing. At the same time, it was explained that the chemamull in the museum required a ceremony to restore their spiritual force. For the community, carrying out this ceremony creates the possibility of reconnecting with them and accessing knowledge that remains relevant for them today. But, in April of last year, during routine maintenance of the permanent exhibition, frass was detected in at least three of the chemamull. According to pest specialists, the infestation was likely caused by a common furniture beetle that had remained inactive within the wood for a long period and was triggered by environmental conditions in the exhibition space. This prompted extensive discussions within the museum team about how to proceed. On one hand, any disinfection treatment will be highly sensitive given the spiritual significance of the chemamull and their intended natural decomposition. And in a way, the presence of these insects seem to be fulfilling that process. But, on the other hand, the infestation posed a serious risk to other organic materials on display, whose context and preservation needs are quite different. Furthermore, it was evident that allowing material decay to occur within the museum would not in itself resolve the deeper issue of the chemamull's loss of connection to their land and to the cultural and spiritual meanings they embody. So, ultimately, the decision was made to proceed with the disinfection of the chemamull. This was not an ideal solution, but it was a necessary action within the specific context of the museum. Identifying an appropriate treatment prompted significant debate. While cold or atmospheric treatments and even ionizing radiation are often considered best practice for organic materials, they were not feasible in this case due to the large dimensions of the chemamull and the lack of local facilities and expertise. So, as a result, a chemical treatment was carried out in consultation with pest specialists. A low concentration of deltamethrin in aerosol format was carefully injected only into existing exit holes and cracks. The intervention was carried out only once, and it's fully documented in the museum's records. In future conservation will focus on environmental control and ongoing monitoring to prevent any re-emergence. However, what I would like to emphasize from this case is that although the pest infestation was complex and challenging, it created an important opportunity to work more closely with the Mapuche community. Rather than focusing solely on a technical solution, the process opened a space for reconnection. So, prior to the disinfection treatment, a conversation took place with Mapuche representatives to discuss the proposed intervention. And following this, a guillatun, a Mapuche prayer ritual, was carried out by the community with the participation of museum staff. This ceremony was understood as a crucial step towards restoring the spiritual connection between the community and the chemamull. And it also helped strengthen the relationship between the museum and Mapuche representatives. So finally, the case of the chemamull remains open and may lead to different decisions in the future. But in the meantime, conservation will focus on preventive care while recognizing that supporting these living practices is also essential to their value and safeguarding. To conclude, the Catalogo Razonado project has shown that these collections cannot be understood solely through conventional museum frameworks, but must also be approached through the knowledge and understandings of the communities to whom they belong. And in this sense, conservation can move beyond preventing material change at all costs and instead generate value through cultural respect, inclusivity, and sustained relationships with living communities. I would like to acknowledge all the artisans, elders, and experts who participated in the Catalogo Razonado project, as well as the researchers who led and carried it forward. Thank you very much for your attention. >> Thank you, thanks for such for such an interesting presentation and how you're integrating different per- perspectives and different communities on that work. Um at this point, our next presenter is going to be Holly Salmon. Um and Holly Salmon is the director of conservation at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Uh and the floor is yours, Holly. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. I want to start by acknowledging my wonderful colleagues and co-authors, Anna Rose, Jess, and Lucia, who are listening in as well. And we would all like to thank the organizers for including us in this conversation. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is a private museum in Boston, where the building, collection, and installations are all the creation of one phenomenal woman. The Venetian style palazzo building has a glass roofed central courtyard surrounded by three floors of galleries, each one carefully curated with artifacts spanning thousands of years and five continents. Upon her death in 1924, Gardner's will was enacted stating that, and here I'm quoting, "The pictures, statuary, works of art, bric-a-brac, furniture, books, and papers are to be kept in trust as a museum for the education and enjoyment of the public forever." This meant that nothing could be moved or changed, leaving us a responsibility not just to the individual works of art, but to the museum as a whole. Now, we all know that preserving something forever is nearly impossible. Instead, what we can do is slow down the deterioration process. We can also challenge ourselves to stop viewing losses inherently negative as we've been talking about today. We can flip the script recognizing that as we try to conserve original material, every treatment does present a risk of loss, but there's often a corresponding gain. For example, removing microscopic silver particles during polishing means that the silver shines in giving us an aesthetic gain. We also regularly justify destructive sampling in our work because it results in information gain. Under this premise, we are using a disability gain framework to think about loss. Disability gain, a term borrowed from disability justice scholar and bioethicist Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, means that instead of viewing disability as a loss or a problem that needs to be fixed, we can think about the generative opportunities that exist in the world because of disability, offering the human community possibilities for unexpected resourcefulness. Accepting loss as gain is easier to embrace in some cases than others. However, we have learned that even a very painful loss can be reframed. In the early hours of March 18th, 1990, two men gained entrance to the Gardner Museum and stole 13 works of art, including Rembrandt's only known seascape, a Vermeer, five Degas drawings, and an ancient Chinese vessel. This heartbreaking loss is something that we all in the museum has grappled with ever since. We have left the empty frames on the walls as placeholders for the recovery of our stolen works, and to remind visitors that Gardner intended for us to make connections between these works and the every detail surrounding them. The curiosity about the theft is the gain, and we have chosen to actively engage with that, steering the narrative beyond the painful loss of these masterworks to see all that we still have to share. One way the museum has flourished is by inviting living artists to engage with the collection. Last year, sound designer and artist Scooby Laposky responded to the stolen Rembrandt painting Christ in the storm on the Sea of Galilee by creating a sound installation that was activated as you approached its empty frame. It gave visitors an auditory experience of how the storm, crashing waves, and struggling sailors might have sounded. Through this work, we have found gain in the most devastating loss with a new sensory way of experiencing art in our ocular-centric world. An undeniable result of the theft is that people all over the world have heard about the Gardner Museum. But if some people come specifically to see the empty frames, we hope they also discover what else this magnificent collection collection has to offer. And we appreciate that sometimes it draws attention to our conservation projects, like the restoration of this 16th-century ceiling that was highlighted in the most recent theft anniversary. Today, we will look at three other examples of how we have reframed what might be considered loss into a much broader range of gain. In the late 19th century, four Italian wall painting fragments, including the two shown here, were detached from their original architectural settings using the strappo technique and transferred to canvas. This process of physically stripping the paint from its plaster support caused immediate damage and accelerated deterioration over time. All four show severe degradation, including flaking, torn canvas, and a glossy surface resulting from 20th-century consolidation efforts. While their condition suggests long-term storage is the safest option, our commitment to the founder's vision forced us into the uncomfortable position of exploring treatment. Once removed from their architectural support, fresco fragments occupy an ambiguous status. They are no longer wall paintings, yet they remain physically and chemically unlike easel paintings. This situation introduces both ethical considerations and practical conservation complement complications and forces us to face the irreversible effects of past interventions. We collaborated with wall paintings conservator Stephanie Bogan to develop a treatment plan. This initiative sparked an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural exchange with fresco experts in Florence, introducing us to new methods for treatment and documentation as well as a framework grounded in their original context. Balancing respect for the work's historical setting and appearance with recognition of the irreversible effects of past interventions and the way that these must inform current decisions emerged as a central theme of the project. We hope that this project will continue to contribute to the reevaluation of similar, often overlooked fresco fragments relegated to storage across US collections. And I'll just note that Lucia and Stephanie will pre- present on the full scope of this project in Oslo at the ICOM-CC conference meeting this fall. Many of the textiles installed by Gardner were already fragile antiques. She collected everything from tapestries to lace, collaging pieces together as wall coverings, draping them over furniture, and occasionally framing them alongside paintings. As the textiles aged, much of the collection was retired to storage or disposed of. By the 1980s, 75% of the original textiles had been removed, essentially erasing one of Gardner's core collections. Some of those textiles were replaced with similar but inaccurate pieces, altering Gardner's intent. So today, we often use more accurate reproductions as one of the primary methods for preserving the original appearance of these spaces. We commissioned new textiles guided by photographs from Gardner's lifetime and samples found in storage. Working with skilled craftspeople, we invest in traditional methods for making these gorgeous materials, just as Gardner did in her lifetime. This approach allows us to support artisans who are preserving historic manufacturing techniques. In some cases, we also have to build up our comfort level with textiles left in the galleries, even though they show signs of wear, such as this fabric once used by John Singer Sargent to frame Gardner in a halo. The damage has already been done, and we have to ask ourselves, is it better to have a blank spot or a faded textile? Is there more loss in consigning the textile to storage when it could tell still tell a story in the gallery? Now, at the heart of the museum is the courtyard containing a working fountain. Gardner designed this to be one of the first things that you see and hear when entering her museum. The rim is made from 17th century Venetian sandstone sculptures built into a brick and mortar structure. Salts, likely accumulated during previous outdoors exposure, are causing efflorescence, cracking, and spalling. There is also consistent algae growth addressed by regular cleaning, which in turn compromises the mortar. We thoroughly investigated options for treatment, but could find no reasonable solutions. So, we documented the piece as closely as possible with high-resolution images and 3D scanning to capture what detail remains. We can use this data to create reproductions and put the originals into storage, but the process would cause significant damage to the stones. We had to ask ourselves, do we leave it in place and let it slowly deteriorate or remove it and put in reproductions at the risk of damage and great cost? Also, what becomes of the original stones that will sit in storage and realistically never be appreciated again? Displaying the fountain dry would certainly slow deterioration, but would also change the multi-sensory experience that Gardner intended. And it doesn't account for the continued moisture from the nearby plants, which are key to visitors experience. Instead, we can lean into the multi-sensory experience and recognize that Gardner also placed tremendous value on her living horticulture collection, as we still do today. By accepting loss and being honest about it, we made gains in cross-cultural collaboration, support of traditional crafts, use of new technology, connecting with our community, and supporting Gardner's vision of a lively and immersive experience. The Gardner collection requires us to re-evaluate best practices and what it means for a collection to be on view forever. We believe that loss and gain are not incompatible, and when it comes to something that on the face of it was a complete loss, what we have gained from that helps us reframe our mindset as conservators and perhaps yours as well. Along with my co-authors, I would also like to thank everyone else listed here. And thank you for having us all share in this discussion today. >> Thank you, Holly. I I think I can I can listen to to your to your talk several times and every time I enjoy in the same way and and every time I I'm particularly pleased pleased by the possibility of putting a puzzle and questioning the risk assessment and the and the the the stolen part. Like, is it is it a a complete loss or what how can how can we quantify it in in the technique? But, uh maybe we can discuss this in the in the in the in the next part of the the webinar. So, I want to call all the all the panelists to turn their cameras on and join us. And to get the the conversation going, I'm going to ask a question I think that for all of you. And I'm asking if do you think that conservation sometimes has become a victim of its own uh success uh we became so so good uh in identifying and preventing uh any material change uh that we become less comfortable discussing uh what we might gain accepting risk? So, if anyone wants to start. >> I'll I'm I'm happy to kick off um both with a potential answer but also a question to put back. So, um the one of the comments that was made when we were discussing this question came from Ana Rosado, textile conservator. And she said that certainly in relation to textiles and fashion conservation, um it can certainly be a victim of its own success. You know, we don't want um donors asking to borrow clothes from the collection, but um it also can't be our job um to archive every sock and glove from the 19th century, right? So, um this can be a challenge in terms of how how think of preserving um textiles. And she also had a great paraphrase from a Twitter quote of you know, do we save the forest by cutting down all the trees and then putting them in a tree museum. So it's kind of an interesting way of of thinking about that. The question that we came to as well and in discussing this is whether everyone feels like maybe have we started to institutionalize the idea that any change is a failure or not. You know, do the training programs discuss these questions and is this becoming something that is more of a a conversation that is being brought up especially in that moment, right? Where you're starting your career and certainly many of us have been at that was the point where we we really learned no damage is acceptable and and and that's the understanding. >> Turning it a little bit from are we suffering from our own success to is is it a problem that we are perceived as being extremely good like mother's milk and conservation. It's always struck me it's who's going to argue against that and especially if we narrowly frame what we're thinking about about preventing you know, something happening where we really don't want something to happen. It's it's that narrow framing and then perception that oh, it must be good where if we just broaden the frame to think about how are we serving society today, tomorrow, 10 years from now. They then it really is quite different. >> If I could join in, um I mostly work with smaller museums in Wales and I can assure you that we're still um leaking with our roofs and dropping things and stabbing things with pens all over the place and there's plenty of changes that we don't really value that much going on. So, I'm pretty confident that we won't run out of conservation challenges. Um certainly here. And so, I think that I haven't really um really ever operated in an environment with the total conservation control. So, I've never really been able to stand on the edge of the possibility of, you know, stopping entropy with my magic conservation powers. So, I suppose but what I in terms of you were sort of saying about victim of our own success, I think that we can become a victim of our own ideology which is the idea that that stopping change is both possible and desirable. So, if um you know, the beautiful fountain and the and the stone carvings that Holly was seeing, I'm so glad that she you know, you didn't take them out and put them in storage because as to me that would be the failure to say that that for a thing to have a thing conceptually not change in storage is better than to have a thing available for people to use and enjoy. So, and it'd be such a beautiful example um because it's such a beautiful place and the whole thing everyone who goes there talks about how beautiful the space is and we could obviously take all apart and put it all into freezers. But but but kill the whole the whole thing. So, I think that I don't think we're going to stop seeing things get dropped and scratched and whatnot around the world. Um and there's plenty of people bombing things at the moment. So, you know, there's no shortage of things getting broken at the moment. But I think that if we think that our job is to to stop all change, then I think that's that's the trap. >> Um, yeah, I think it's great that uh our discipline has advanced so much and now we have new tools, uh new analytical um tools to measure the damage, for example, like the micro micro fading tester or the acoustic monitoring sensors, and all that, but sometimes perhaps that gives us such a detailed information about what's going on in an object and how it's reacting to the environment that we if we get caught in that detailed information, perhaps that makes us more anxious about what's going on. Uh so, I think that we as conservators really have to um try to reframe our approach to the discipline and not forget the bigger picture, the bigger context in which we are concerning. Uh And just to point out an example of my presentation, perhaps some of you noticed that when the two silversmiths that came to the museum and uh handled the silver jewelry that is safeguarded here at the museum, they touched them, they handled them uh with their bare their hands, no gloves. And of course, that was a decision that was made by the museum before they came because we knew that it was important for them to touch them and to get that direct access to these objects because they also are the ones who keep uh they know it about how to manufacture these objects today. And so, the new information that they gave us just because of that experience, it was very important to us. And also, the moment of connection, emotional connection that they had with these objects, it was really, really important and it also gave us a new depth about these collections. And so, yeah, perhaps they left a little fingerprint in the in some of the objects, but I think that change or that deterioration it's it's good. I mean, compared to all the new information and that connection that was created. Of course, it's it's not that I'm saying that anyone can touch them, but sometimes we can accept that. >> I just wanted to add that I think there has historically been also a little bit of a cultural confinement of uh conservation, which evidently is uh basically getting out of its bubble and this webinar today is a proof. Um but I do believe that conservation is an intellectual uh job. It is not just about the practical practice and and I believe that the discourse that conservation has always to be, you know, included in any kind of discussion when it comes about, you know, the value of the artwork, the relationship with the community sources, with sorry, with the with communities, um the display. And and by doing that, of course, uh you change perspective, too, because you can see things get less polarized. >> Yeah, I I guess my my next question is kind of related to to what you you just uh said, Marina. Um because in an institution like often we we still see those silos, right? Like conservation and they'll come and like only think about uh the the the things we might lose and people are going to touch and and I just I just treated this this object, so it's going to ruin my work. Um so how do we how do we transition? Cuz now we all agree, okay, we have to to talk, but how do we create like an institutional culture where making decisions uh under uncertainty becomes more comfortable and and then we're not in the blaming individual uh people. >> I think a part of it is just what you said, right? Like we can't we can't make these decisions in a silo. No one person and and also thinking too about the hierarchical um way of making that decision, right? And and certainly here we have five conservators over three disciplines. We have to acknowledge our limitations and bring in more voices. And obviously, it's often the curatorial voice, but we also only have, you know, three curators, right? So So we have to understand that there are other voices that have to come in. Um and essentially in a moment where we talk a lot about, you know, decolonization of museums, are we actually thinking about cultural context for the you know, the object in addition to how it's presented in our space. So I think those two concepts, right? Like thinking about the cultural context of of an object and then also just recognizing you you cannot work in a silo. It has to be something that brings in voices and they may they may disagree. And Jane, I like that you talked about like let's turn it around to What are the What are the solutions that we can find together using our individual knowledges and experience? >> But also if I can, it's the overall idea of museum which is changing as museums are more and more participatory. And I mean, I don't remember who of you showed the the icon for for the wheelchair for disability in an active way, and I loved it. I I signed it. Um so, you know, by by thinking in a more inclusive way, by listening to more voices rather than just the voices of the specialists, basically we disrupt the hierarchy because of course, once the hierarchy was the heart the art historian, and then the conservator was was below, and then the communities were probably out of the door. We're just, you know, the visitors, the people paying, you know, the ticket, and we're changing that paradigms. And of course, by changing this, these are all consequences which are, you know, important. It's important to listen to different perspectives. >> Recognize that those kind of changes are going to be slow, and our task is to nudge constantly in the right direction, and be patient, and understand it's going to be slow for whole institutions to change their kind of risk appetite and risk tolerance, and and be accepting of uncertainty. >> I think at this point we'll shift to the Q&A. There's a few questions that have that have been posed, and I'm sure they would all like to hear your answers. So, let's start with the question aimed at Jane and Rob. It's do you think that social change or social perception or accessibility could also be considered as agents similar to the other agents that you showed in your presentation? >> You want to go to Jane or should >> You start. I mean, we talk about this all the time. >> [laughter] >> Right. Right. Well, I think from from a risk um assessment and management perspective, the nice thing about the set of 10 agents, I prefer agents of change to deterioration because a fixation on deterioration neglects people jabbing pens through things and stuff like that. That's not deterioration, but it's definitely a risk. So, we focus on agents of change um and uh and the nice thing about the set of 10 that we work with now is that they can all be considered in that kind of hard system view as direct causes of change that could result in a change in value. And just being direct causes as opposed to broader factors like inadequate budgets, um poor staff morale, things like that. Those are all factors that influence risk. But, uh just having this set of agents that are clearly defined as immediate causes of change is is very helpful. So, we do try to stick to that. >> I think that there's a distinction between things we don't like and things which sit in a technical risk framework. So, there's lots of things, you know, we don't like like, you know, colonial collecting policies or um you know, gender discriminatory labels and things like that. All those things uh from in my from my perspective problematic and they come in the way between us getting the maximum experience from our collections. But, there are different frameworks and different tools in which to deploy our understanding. So, you know, the work that Rob and Steph McCarthy did particularly around those agents of deterioration or change is a technical framework for very specific part of preventive conservation. Now, my preventive conservation goes much bigger into discussions about how best to care for things, whether keeping them in the UK, for example, or whether injecting an insecticide into something is the best way to care for something if if people would like things to to deteriorate. But, I think that we should be having those conversations, but we don't need to shove them into the agent of deterioration in order to have those conversations. And therefore, we can say, "Well, what other factors, you know, what other models and toolkits are we using to talk about our social responsibilities?" And there's so, you know, the PESTEL and those sorts of things are really, really helpful for doing that. And we just kind of wanted to show that we need to stratify the benefits systematically if we're stratifying the risks systematically, because otherwise, inevitably, our attention is on the risk. If we don't sit down and describe those benefits, they the risk overwhelms our perspective. >> Okay. Another question that has come up is who has the authority within their institution to determine what constitutes acceptable change in a cultural object? Is it primarily a conservation recommendation? Recommendation? Is it defined in exhibition or in own policy? Or is it decided on a case-by-case basis? Maybe we can start with Josefa if you'd like to address the question. >> Yeah, thank you. In our case, I would say primarily it can be a recommendation from the conservation team, but actually these decisions are also shared with the whole institution such as curators. We are a small institution, so there's not a lot of people um contributing to these decisions, but uh what I want to mention is that here at the museum we're really incorporating in our institution the concept of inter- interculturality. So there's a real shift now here that we have to collaborate and discuss these issues with the communities involved. And that's very important and I think that has crossed all the departments here at the museum. So it's really our way of working nowadays. >> Colleen and Lorena, do you have um anything you'd like to add? >> Um it's funny because at Mudec uh we have various curators for the different collections and besides the fact that um I I am a specialist in con- conservation of contemporary art, they tend to ignore me because conservation is very much specialized, you know, not conservation, sorry. The approach of curators is very much specialized and so I'm I'm not that much considered. So I would say the decision-making process has to be, of course, a a a sharing and a group one, but again, in museum of cultures, the level of specialization tends to, you know, like push apart those who are have not the tools, you know, to enter into the conservation. So we have to dismantle that kind of approach. >> I think one of the advantages that we have today is the opportunity to connect internationally, right? Like we're very lucky in Boston here. There are a lot of, you you very talented, smart conservators, scientists, um and curators and educators and students. Like we take advantage of all of that, but it's nice to think too that today we can also do this, right? And and have that broader voice that um might influence where the decision is going. Um and you're all going to think I'm crazy, but here sometimes we think of Isabella Stewart Gardner as being the person who makes the decision, right? Like she left us a will and this is what we have to follow and figure out how we can fit our work into that. Um and I'm I'm kind of joking, but I'm also kind of serious. >> [laughter] >> Hey, uh we have an another question for James and Rob. Um it's how can collections staff deal with bias when it comes to heuristics in decision making? That sounds like a webinar in and of itself. >> I Thank you, Frankie, for your question. Um I just checked it was 10 years ago that Rob and I published a paper in Studies in Conservation. I know makes us feel even older on different types of decision making. So there's more of an answer there to be had. But I think that um we talk about noticing and we talk about acknowledging a lot in society and I think that's a good way of thinking about it. If we notice what we're doing and acknowledge what we're doing, we can't get rid of all our biases, but if we involving other people in conversations, then we've got two sets of biases and we have the opportunity to be illuminated when someone sees a different perspective from us. So the more people that are involved, exactly what Joseph Joseph is talking about is that the involving this cross-cultural community, it brings in these multiple perspectives and it helps you ask the question, is this tarnish a problem? And if the tarnish isn't a problem, then, you know, where it's a heuristic to go, "I'm a conservative. Shiny, shiny, shiny. I can do shiny. I can make it shinier than the next person." And it Of course, we love making things shiny because we're really good at it. So, like that kind of emotional Let me just clean that. Um that that's there. Now, it On the other hand, you can imagine yourself a rational decision maker who's making all this database information, but actually it's all coming from an emotional perspective. So, it's it's important to see both sides of that. So, things like spending time to know what you're just what you're doing. I'm a huge advocate that your conservation record should start with, "What do I feel about this object?" When I was presented with it and after 3 weeks working on it. I mean, I had an object I worked on for a year and for sure, I was in love with her by the end. Um and I still think she's mine when I go and see her in the museum. Um so, I have a completely different relationship with that object and a complete obsession to work on something. So, I think there's lots and lots of things that that that I wanted to share. And the last thing was goal sharing. You know, if we express what it is that we're trying to achieve, it gives other people a chance to see where we're trying to go. It gives them a chance to discuss that cuz the technical side of our work, "I'm going to deploy this adhesive." It's very difficult to have a conversation about, but this is where I want to go. I want to make this wooden sculpture last a bit longer, but I don't want to make it last forever. You know, I want to kill these insects in order to achieve that outcome. That allows us to be accountable for our goals, to discuss those goals, but also then to learn from them. Did we do a good job of that afterwards? And we are bound to make mistakes because everyone who went before us did. So, let's help the next lot of people coming behind us to learn from our mistakes cuz we actually said what our intent was. And then when they go, "Why in the heck did they do this stupid thing?" At least they'll know what our our process as well. >> I think we have time for maybe one more question. And that question is, how do you think these >> [snorts] >> changes in perspectives are reflected in the codes of ethics for con- conservation? Um and if we feel like they aren't reflected, what needs to change for this to be better reflected in those in those codes? Um anyone want to take a stab on it? >> Can I go even though I'm not a >> [laughter] [clears throat] >> I think for me and I and the first thing would be the the thing about doing the best possible thing, like the best practices and and and all that because the best like like we said, the best possible it's it's becoming like really really really precise and lot. Uh and how we don't maybe even if we have the means of doing something that would be the best possible or like keeping the temperature and the relative humidity super stable and risk zero etc. etc. Like do we really need to do the best possible if we have the resource even if we have the resources? >> Just picking up on that that certainly conservation can't be alone in this. This must be something that surgeons in their code of ethics must recognize that surgery isn't the ultimate answer to everything and some physiotherapy might do and that sort of thing. So it it must be a universal challenge, I think, wherever there's any kind of specialization. So I would tend to want to ask an ethicist how how should that be dealt with and how do different groups deal with it? >> I agree. You know, in our in our workshop we talked about uncertain ethics, so we should talk about ethics in a more broader way rather than prescriptions. >> All right. Well, I think this brings us to a close. So, first I just wanted to thank all of our speakers. It was it was a pleasure to have all of you here to share your insights and how this extend this discussion beyond the conference and and push it out into the field. So, some of the next steps, this webinar is being recorded and we'll edit it and we'll post it in July on the AIC YouTube page. There'll also be an evaluation survey. It should pop up immediately in the browser when the webinar ends and we'll also share it by email. And I wanted to point out something that Cecilia mentioned is that this is actually a follow-up discussion from a conference session we had at the recent AIC CAC conference um of the of the same name and there there were talks by Rebecca Niderer from the Canadian Conservation Institute, Kirsten Don from National Galleries of Scotland and Rachel Prout Peak who is an educator as well as Sofie van Holly that shared today. These recordings are available to conference attendees at the moment, but our hope is in the future we'll be able to share them more widely just so they can complement the discussion that happened today. And I just wanted to acknowledge again just the organizing groups, the MFT International Discussion Group which is trying to support microfading tester users and we have a QR code that takes us to the uh the landing page as well as the preventive care network uh which is supporting conservators and collection care professionals with um strong preventive interests. Um and particularly for them we wanted to link to the connecting the collections care resources. So, that's where this QR code takes you. Um so, with that I'd like to end the presentation and end and the webinar and thank everybody again. Thanks everyone for attending um and we'll see you again in the future.