Introducing the UK Museums and Heritage Sustainable Packing Group – Lynne Harrison ACR FIIC
The UK Museums and Heritage Sustainable Packing Group aims to establish new sustainable standards for packing and transporting artworks in order to support loans, exhibitions and collection movement being as sustainable as possible. As a network we work collaboratively and efficiently by pooling resources and expertise across UK institutions and working with external partners. We examine the materials we currently use as well as alternative materials and approaches to packing to find combinations that reduce waste and allow reuse and recycling.
Recycling in the conservation studio – Jessica Crann ACR and Wendy Millward-Woodiwis
This will be a 2-part talk concentrating on the research Jessica and Wendy did during 2022, examining how and whether conservators were currently recycling their gloves and did they have a wish to? This led to a scientific investigation of Oddy testing nitrile gloves in current use, methods of recycling and comparing conservation with other organisations such as the Royal college of Nursing who also use a lot gloves. From this study we have written and published “The Handy Glove Guide” which is available in the Icon website for anyone to use, describing what all the various symbols on a box of gloves actually mean from being safe to use when working with mould through to EU standards of safety, which we will also share. The second part of the talk will concentrate on recycling a large portion of polyester shrinkwrap used to protect railway collections that had to be stored outside at the museum Locomotion in County Durham. Did it work and what did the conservation department subsequently do with it in the pursuit of sustainability?
Co-organised by the UK Museums and Heritage Sustainable Packing Group and Clare Richardson, Head of Conservation at The Courtauld, as part of her work with the GoGreen project.
Speakers:
Lynne Harrison ACR FIIC joined the National Gallery, London as an accredited paintings conservator in 2012, where her practice is focused on the structural conservation of the paintings collection. She is also the conservation department’s lead in preventive conservation and is chair of the Gallery’s Preventive Conservation Working Group. Her research activities include the use and efficacy of microclimates, the performance of packing cases and the effects of vibration and mitigation methods for paintings. In the last two years she has extended her practice to investigate and incorporate sustainable options for greener conservation practice.
Jessica Crann ACR found a love for paper conservation after completing an Archive Conservation Traineeship at North Yorkshire County Record Office in 2007. She graduated from Northumbria in 2009 with an MA in Conservation of Fine Art, Works of Art on Paper. Having worked freelance and for various institutions she is currently an Accredited Paper Conservator working for the Science Museum Group as the Library and Archives Conservator.
Wendy Millward-Woodiw originally trained as an archaeologist and later trained as an object conservator at Durham University in 2015. Her conservation background is quite varied and she has worked for both private and public such as the National Trust as a consultant and Spencer and Fry as a filming conservator, however, her full time job is looking after the fantastic Railway collection at the National Railway Museum where she has been for 9 years. Her outlook towards conservation, preservation of collections is that as individuals we should have open, honest and have frank discussions regarding the best and most ethical way of preserving the past for the future and have an open mind to any ideas.
