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/
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