Conservation for Wellbeing

Session 10 on Zoom 20^th November – Project display

2.30 to 3.30 – Zoom workshop, hosted by Restoration Trust (RT) and presented from Project Worker’s (HL) home

The final workshop was a celebration of what the participants had achieved by staying with the project through the transition from face-to-face sessions to virtual workshops on Zoom. By generously committing their time and enthusiasm and the strength to tackle something new they have supported our Conservation for Wellbeing project and enabled us to complete the sessions. A slide show which described the project from beginning to end was produced and shared that with the invited guests who joined us for our final Zoom session. Each participant was presented with a certificate and these were later printed and sent out to each person.

The research conducted by art therapist Daisy Rubinstein, with expert support from UCL’s Linda Thomson, will professionally evaluate the impact of the project for participants and staff, and I trust it has had a beneficial effect on all those who have taken part. Using conservation and preservation activities for a wellbeing project working with people with complex mental health needs has not been tried before and we hope that this one will be the first of many. Here are some ‘lessons learnt’ points that I will be using for our next one!

• Involve participants at every level of the project so that they are helping to formulate and feedback as well as experiencing the activities
• Make sure there is enough time allocated for communication in-between sessions
• Ensure that evaluation documentation (questionnaires, surveys, etc.) are user friendly
• Build in an acknowledgement that the experiences around the actual workshops – travel, refreshments, introductions, technology, language, home circumstances – are as much a part of the engagement and learning as the workshop itself.

Conservation for Wellbeing 1 – 30

Conservation for Wellbeing 31 – 62

Session 9 on Zoom 6^th November – Collage

2.30 to 3.30 – Zoom workshop, hosted by Restoration Trust (RT) and presented from Project Worker’s (HL) home

An important aspect of the final session of the series was to reflect on and discuss with participants what they have got out of the project, both the face-to-face and on-line workshops. In order to facilitate this, we decided to use ‘collage’ as a way of looking back and exploring the experience. Images taken during previous workshops were printed out in colour and sent to each participant, together with some sheets of coloured paper, white paper and glue. A range of images were used; including people, equipment, objects and locations.

The workshop began with a slide show of the ways in which collage can be used. Contemporary artist’s work of colourful, uplifting images as well as collages from WW1 were shown to demonstrate that collage can be used to demonstrate a range of emotions and content.

We then took 30 minutes to work on our own artwork. At the end of the workshop, we shared what we had done so far and talked about

what they had meant to us. Different approaches were taken and while some people made two sheets others were not finished within the hour. In the following week, everyone completed their artwork and posted them on or sent an image so that they could be included in the final display.

Session 8 on Zoom 23^rd October – Making folded mounts

2.30 to 3.30 – Zoom workshop, hosted by Restoration Trust (RT) and presented from Project Worker’s (HL) home

In-between each C4W workshop participants were phoned and emailed to check that they are okay and have the technological support they need. SMART staff have also maintained contact.

Sally Bevan, an archivist working at London Metropolitan Archives, started the session with a talk about how we can all create our own archives at home.  She looked at how we all collect papers that are important such as certificates or meaningful such as, photographs or birthday cards, and considered how we may want to organise and package our collection.

Each participant had been posted a package in advance of the session and receiving our parcel in the post was a source of pleasure for all of us, workers and participants alike. A bit like a personal present. The materials and instructions contained in the package could be looked at in advance but generally participants waited until the actual workshop when we could go through the contents together.

This practical part of the session started with a brief discussion of what a folded mount might be suitable to use with a heritage photograph, postcard, or document, and what archival materials could be used. We then undertook the step-by step instructions via Zoom with plenty of time in-between stages for questions, comments and explanations.

photo mount instructions

This was a really enjoyable activity; everyone completed a folded mount which could be used with a postcard of their choosing. It is hoped that this activity provided participants with a skill they could use in other circumstances, with children or to make presents, as well as considering the benefits for archival documents.

Helen Lindsay, ACR

Restoration Trust, project worker

Session 6 on Zoom 25^th September Sewing Pamphlets

2.30 to 3.30 – Zoom workshop, hosted by Restoration Trust (RT) and presented from London Metropolitan Archives (LMA)

We’re Back! After lockdown, which closed the archive and turned the world upside down for a while, we have, like so many others, re-surfaced to find that we must function differently. The Zoom meeting room is having its moment and we have joined the on-line community that is the ‘Zoom workshop’. Its not the same as our face-to-face sessions but our first meeting went well, with positive and encouraging feedback.

Following introductions and a summary of the session, Caroline, the LMA studio manager, took us on a tour of the conservation workshop. LMA is located in a re-purposed printing works so the rooms are large and airy with high ceilings and an open plan arrangement. Perfect set-up for a conservation studio.

Caroline used her laptop on a trolley to prevent any shaking and we got both an overview of the room and close-up views of the various types of equipment; sink, fume cupboard, presses etc.

Each participant had been posted a package with materials for the workshop and after the tour Caroline went through the contents and explained why a paper or book conservator would want to know how to sew a pamphlet.

The package contained thread, a needle (with a small piece of cork on its sharp point), cut sheets, written instructions and a template for the sewing stations.

The cover images are of the hospital building from the St Luke’s hospital collection we have been working with.

For more information on history of the hospital see LMA’s Principle Archivist Phillipa Smith’s blog about St Luke’s hospital on The Wellcome Trust website;

http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2015/05/the-great-and-the-good-visit-the-asylum/

The demonstration of how to sew a 5 hole pamphlet worked well, and was straightforward to do, but there is no doubt that was down to the preparation in the packages plus the concentration and skills of the participants.

We were pleased by the good feeling and input from all, and with both new and existing participants it will be interesting to see how the Zoom meetings compare with our face-to-face sessions in January and February.

Certainly, there was less opportunity to chat in the virtual space, or follow-up on chance remarks but hope that as we get more used to this way of working, we can find more ways to foster interaction and discussion.

Helen Lindsay, RT Project Worker and Paper Conservator

Midpoint Focus Groups with Staff & Participants, London Metropolitan Archives and SMART, 6^th & 13^th March 2020.

In the few weeks leading up to the UK lockdown due to Covid-19, I met with participants and staff of the Conservation for Wellbeing project, to learn how they felt the project has gone so far.

Looking back, it was a strange time, in which many were feeling growing anxiety and anticipation of the measures to come. The focus groups, for myself at least, came as a welcome break from conversation about the corona virus, and yet it seems obvious now that even these conversations were impacted by the collective consciousness of the pandemic.

I had first met staff during week 5 of the project sessions at LMA. The following week, five days before UK schools closed, I had a session with participants. As the researcher on the C4W project I had not met all the participants before. We gathered in the meeting room at SMART with cups of tea and some participants still eating lunch, to talk for an hour and reflect on all aspects of the project.

The participants spoke openly, and shared some fascinating insights into what has been most important and resonant for them about the activities and the archives. Particular sessions stood out, such as making boxes to store the archives, and the week in which participants learnt about the tiny pests which pose a threat to documents. Several participants made connections to memories from their own lives, including occasions when they and their families have used more manual photography methods to record important occasions. Participants talked about how the quality of a photograph is affected by the process through which it is produced, and how replicas or well stored negatives might change the value of each image.

All participants made connections to their own memories, and thought together about value, significance and meaning, particularly as these are held within articles and objects they themselves have collected throughout their lives. They each talked about things that they protect and preserve due to their importance or relevance to them. The group explored what it is that can transcend time within archives, and how the records hold resonances which can be shared with people who never met the individuals whose lives they relate to.

They talked about how interesting and valuable it has been to learn about a field of work most people know little about. The project has given people an opportunity to enter a rarely seen world, in which every day involves taking care of snap shots and pieces of life stories. There have been lots of surprises, and elements of the work that the participants could not have imagined.

One participant explained;

“It was just really interesting how careful you have to be. You have to treat these things like you would treat a human being basically.”

Now is a time when we all may be thinking more about how we take care of each other and ourselves, and about what is most important to preserve or know and how those things can be kept safe. We are thinking more than usual about what matters most to us. This is a hugely significant point in history, which we are witnessing for ourselves as it emerges every day. I wonder how people may be recording this time for themselves, whether they will be keeping diaries more, or collecting things to keep when we re-emerge from lockdown, and life begins to resume. What will we want to remember or preserve for others to see, from this strange and poignant time?

Daisy Rubinstein, art therapist and C4W evaluation consultant

Here are more conservation fabulousnesses.

Sara Crofts, CEO of Icon, suggested these.

The National Trust’s conservation studio at Knole: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/knole/features/conservation-work-at-knole

And some of their work: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/knole/features/dismantling-the-spangled-bed

The conservation dept at the Bodleian Library.  Lots of case studies – but this one is my favourite: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/our-work/conservation/case-studies/selden-map. More at: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/our-work/conservation/case-studies

This is a portion of the Seldon Map of China, photo credit Bodleian Library, and a link to the digital version here.

Some things going on in the meantime….

Conservation for wellbeing online

Thanks to emergency funding from City Bridge Trust, we are just about to get a programme of digital sessions underway. We will provide people with whatever they need to be able to access Zoom sessions at no cost to themselves – that means the hardware, software, training and support. Then we will start the sessions. We hope these will begin in May.

Ask a conservator

If you have any object that could do with a new lease of life, ask one of the conservators that are part of the Conservation for Wellbeing project. We can put you in touch with an expert based on whatever object you have that could do with restoration.

Send an email to either Tom Exley at SMART or Laura Drysdale at the Restoration Trust with your questions.

Art and design tutorials

Our mental health partners SMART are running weekly art and design tutorials on the website – here. The sessions include a conservation element.

London Metropolitan Archives

LMA have posted details of their online services on their website here. You can also look at the digitised archives of St Luke’s Hospital, which we are working on with the Conservation Team at LMA, here. 

Conservation resources online

Our conservation partner Icon is running a programme of Zoom webinars called Conservation Together at Home that you can sign up for. Interesting talks, including about paper and archives are featuring for the next few. Click here.

This oral history is by María Teresa Dávila Álvarez, who was a restorer at the Prado in Madrid and worked on Las Meninas when it was conserved in 1984. When she is going to restore a painting it says to her: ‘Dont touch me with despondency or brusqueness. I demand that you touch me with delicacy’. https://www.museodelprado.es/en/resource/dont-touch-me-with-despondency/4c68f648-6270-4896-a920-202bc426f8ef]

TV programmes

There are two unmissable conservation/restoration programmes on TV at the moment or on catch-up – The Repair Shop and Secrets of the Museum. You can apply to be on The Repair Shop here

Session 5 at LMA 6^th March 2020. Historic Photographs

This week’s session began early for Caroline De Stefani and myself as we spoke to our researcher Daisy Rubinstein about our experience of the project. During this discussion a key reflection for me was how the physical characteristics of the collection items – the smell of old leather, texture of parchment and sounds of different papers – seem to be especially engaging for participants.

Everyone arrived in two taxis from SMART and we began lunch by washing our hands following guidance from our Covid-19 Virus risk assessment.

Once the workshop started our first task was to fold and wrap the boxes we had measured last week around the books. We were joined by LMA’s Learning and Engagement Manager Aimee Taylor, and, as we grappled with getting the labels stuck down in the correct place and the right way up, she remarked, “Conservation is so detailed…….”

We then discussed the materials that glass plate negatives and silver gelatine photographs are made from.

I mentioned that the era of the physical photograph is over, and we talked about how completely different digital data and prints are. We looked at some of the different supports used in photography (glass, paper, plastic), and at the image and emulsion layer – commonly silver particles that form an image in a gelatine layer.

“Gelatine, is that bones?” asked Julia (not her real name).

“Yes,” I answered, “that’s what the rag and bone man used to collect.”

“Photographs are made from bones? Human bones?”

After establishing that the bones were animal, probably horse, the conversation moved on, to grave robbing and autopsy, before we returned to historic photographs. The handout we provided also included a list of ‘dos and don’ts’ such as wearing vinyl gloves, keeping prints and negatives on the table, etc.

Looking at the prints and deciding which size polyester sleeve to use

Following tea, we were joined by Tom and Nana (a volunteer working with SMART) after they had been interviewed by Daisy. We spent the rest of the session re-housing black & white photographs of hospitals and asylums into polyester sleeves. The photographs varied in size and the correct polyester sleeve had to be chosen. This activity was quite hectic as everyone took part with enthusiasm and we re-housed four boxes in record speed!

Looking at photographs of a hospital sitting room for live-in nurses

Next Friday the Project Steering Group is meeting on the same day as the SMART art group, and will take place at SMART. The Steering Group is made up of the partners, staff, researchers and participants, and it is the main vehicle for managing the project . There will also be a focus group meeting for participants with Daisy.

 C4W team on the day

Caroline De Stefani – LMA Studio Manager and C4W conservation lead

Helen Lindsay – Collections Care Consultant and C4W project co-ordinator

Tom Exley – SMART Art & Design Tutor and C4W project co-ordinator

Aimée Taylor – LMA Learning and Engagement Officer