Editorial

Theory and practice never exist in isolation and are always mapping over each other in many ways. Innovation and technical development feed forward into theory and theoretical views influence and change technology and practice. Furthermore, as conservators increasingly acknowledge a multiplicity of approaches, variations in taking care of things stemming from the diversity of distinct cultural traditions allow pluralistic methods to become part of the profession’s repertoire. The articles in this first issue of 2024 demonstrate not only how the conceits of theory and practice are neither rigid nor universal, but how they evolve and develop differently across the world. They also hint at the continuing struggle in balancing fundamental orientations and possible recalibrations as to what the profession can effect. Conservation is far beyond any aesthetic moment produced by the dynamics of historical process as it has always been part of some social, cultural and political programme of valorisation, regardless of how ‘hazy’ those horizons might be.

While the six articles in this issue appear to focus on aspects of material technicity they are all imbued with at least a hint of emotional value too, acknowledging how materials feature as transitory features in the lives of both ourselves and others, opera aperta. Arguably, as these articles show, conservators are one group concerned with maintaining and never trivialising these often competing values.

In the first article Tiffany Eng Moore and Crystal Maitland present their findings on the use of rapid adenosine bioluminescent swab testing (‘ATP monitoring’) in conservation. Their article, ‘How do we assess mould levels? Testing the parameters of rapid adenosine bioluminescent swabs in conservation’, surveys literature from the food hygiene, healthcare and conservation sectors to formulate a set of conjectures around the usefulness of ATP monitoring for mould reduction, supported by a simple lab experiment. They conclude that the use of ATP swabs can help support conservators in understanding the effectiveness of particular methods when cleaning mould from a variety of substrates.

Paul Garside and Karen Bradford’s ‘Revising and developing the environmental policy at the British Library’ details the revisions made to the BL’s environment policy in the light of an increased need to better incorporate human, operational and practical requirements across the whole organisation. A number of benefits from this work are discussed, not least how the single concise document is inter-operable across a range of activities in the Library while privileging the concerns of preventive conservation within the institution.

On a particular granular level, Mohsen Javeri et al. offer their reflections on the analysis and treatment of a small, fragmented layer of gypsum plaster with painted heart motifs. In ‘Technical studies and conservation of a fragmented painted plaster excavated from the Vigol Sasanian site, Central Iran’ they discuss how XRF, XRD, SEM-EDS and micro-Raman analyses applied to the painted fragments revealed that a concentration of impurities was less extant near the minium red lead decorative layer, suggesting that the gypsum-rich plaster had been applied over an earthen substrate. Given its fragmented state the authors complete their article by describing the conservation actions taken to reintegrate and safely house the newly restored plaster.

In ‘Threats to the preservation of the viceroyal church facades of Juli, Peru’, Abigail Saldaña Cabanillas and Melanie Lupaca Huarac describe the need for a suite of non-destructive multidisciplinary methods to be systematically deployed to help assess the range of natural and anthropic threats to a group of early Christian church facades in the Andean region of Peru. While the most notable risks are climatic and geological, bureaucratic neglect also severely compromises the facades which the authors hope to help mitigate through their proposed methodology.

In their ‘Preliminary study of the formation of cracking and flaking phenomena on oil paintings on copper through the artificial aging of two miniature paintings’, Eliano Diana et al. set about to confirm how fluctuations in environmental conditions can badly affect the conservation of paintings on copper. In a simple experiment using real miniature paintings the authors confirm previous studies to show how variations in temperature and RH provoke degradation in this type of painting. As a by-product of this study the authors also offer a simple experimental set-up with self-made climate chambers which could prove useful for other kinds of artificial testing of materials in the field.

Arumugam Shanmugasundaram and Sivakumar Krishnamoorthy’s ‘A systematically evolved method for the effective use of essential oil blends for the structural maintenance of palm leaf manuscripts’, brings together two recently featured materialities to suggest how to maximise the preservation of one by the use of the other. FTIR spectroscopy was systematically used to underscore the degree of preservation success of six bespoke essential oil blends applied to palm leaf manuscripts (PLMs), as measured by their higher stiffness and brightness after treatment. The authors recommend a particular blend for regular use to help reduce physical and chemical damage faced by these critically important documents.

Fittingly, the issue concludes with a review of Kalliopi Fouseki’s Heritage Dynamics—Understanding and Adapting to Change in Diverse Heritage Contexts, a book that re-iterates how all cultural material is always transitory and in dynamic process. That the non-linearity of the life cycle of any heritage can catalyse the recalibration of values will, as conservators understand, always have immediate and often irreversible collateral effects.