Projects: Fly-in Conservator Project  

Conservator Fly-in Visits – Call For Applications

In 2016 Inuit Heritage Trust is again offering heritage facilities in Nunavut with the opportunity to have their facility and collections assessed by a professional conservator. The conservator will fly to your facility and spend about 2-3 days with you to examine the environmental conditions at your facility and the condition of your collection or the condition of single objects. You can discuss any questions regarding collection management, collection care and conservation with the conservator while he or she is on site.

The conservator will write-up a report about the site visit with recommendations for improvements at your facility and submit it to IHT and your institution for you to easily identify priorities for follow up initiatives to improve respectively ensure the quality of your facility services and your collection.

If you want to learn more about the site visits please contact the IHT project manager Torsten Diesel (867-979-0731, tdiesel@ihti.ca). The deadline for applications is January 10, 2016. Feel free to contact IHT at any time to arrange a conservator fly-in visit at your facility for next year.

The actual site visit will take place according to prior agreement between your facility and the conservator.


Background

Nunavut presently has no Conservator to assist heritage facilities and organizations with the preservation of their collections, nor to help them bring their storage and display up to national standards. Although some organizations may have a member of staff capable of carrying out basic levels of collections care, and may be aware of the broad parameters of conservation, they lack the tools and expertise required to implement policies, design proper storage guidelines (applicable to their specific situation) and carry out any sort of conservation treatments.

In the next two years, IHT will work with communities and conservators (Canadian Conservation Institute as well as private contractors) to arrange visits to public Nunavut collections that haven't yet participated in IHT's 'Conservator Fly-In Project'. This will ensure fair and extensive assessment of Nunavut's collections. The main purpose would be to highlight the current state of Nunavut's collections by producing a 'check-up' report. This will be used to set training goals in conservation, to determine whether bulk purchasing of conservation materials and environmental reading tools would be beneficial and to advocate for help in relation to collections to those that have a stake in preserving them. To accomplish this goal, each public collection in Nunavut needs to be visited. [Following 'Facilities to be visited' paragraph deleted]
 

Resources

The Canadian Conservation Institute

Brodart, supplier of conservationally correct materials and supplies

[Carr McLean resource deleted]

Organizations that have collections have a responsibility to protect and preserve the collection entrusted to its care, so that future generations will have the opportunity to enjoy and learn from it.

Colleen Healey, Conservator discusses conservation issues with Kyra Fisher at the Uqqurmiut Center for Arts and Crafts
in Pangnirtung