Demos Project : Saved for the Nation

It's a Material World

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:45:42 UT

Launch of a new Demos pamphlet, It’s a Material World, by Samuel Jones and John Holden, in Whitehall's Banqueting House.

It's a Material World demonstrates the social value of caring for the material world, and highlights the importance of conservation as being integral not only to the culture and heritage sector but also social well-being.

In choosing what things to care for, and how to conserve them, we reflect and create social value. Conservation therefore not only sustains and refreshes the values of the past – giving us an understanding of where we have come from – but also reflects values for the present and the future. We need to sustain the conservation profession so that it can play a central role in a new agenda – caring for the material world.

In addition to providing recommendations for conservators this pamphlet calls for action from policy-makers, cultural professionals and the public as well. All of these groups have an interest caring for the material world, and they all have a part to play in connecting conservation to some of the major challenges we face as a society, both in the UK and internationally.

The event will consist of a project presentation by Samuel Jones, co-author of It's a Material World and followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with:

John Holden, Chair, Demos Associate and co-author
Michael Day, Chief Executive of the Historic Royal Palaces
Yinnon Ezra, Director of Recreation and Heritage Services at Hampshire County Council, Board Member of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and Trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund

Refreshments will be served.

Register here if you'd like to attend this event. For additional information please contact Amarjit Lahel on amarjit.lahel@demos.co.uk or call 020 7367 4200.

Protecting the Lord Protector

samuel[dot]jones@demos[dot]co[dot]uk ( Sam Jones ) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:59:04 UT

We're currently doing some work on heritage conservation and the importance of caring for the material world.

Two of the core themes will be the symbolic importance of conservation, and the opportunities for engaging people in caring for different heritage and cultural forms and the implications that has for identity.

With this in mind, it is interesting to see the work currently being done to clean and restore the statue of Oliver Cromwell on Cromwell Green in front of the Houses of Parliament. The work is scheduled to finish in time for the 350th anniversary of his death and so conservation is an important part of creating a sense of moment that will contribute to the celebrations of an important figure in British History.

Another interesting aspect of the work is that the restoration is being documented on Flickr. So, the process of conservation is charted in a way that has the potential to reach new audiences, as well as those who pass the statue en route to an office in Whitehall and might not even notice the work underway.

That's an interesting combination of new technologies being used in heritage work, and I think it shows the potential of things like social networking not only in engaging people in heritage, but also bringing new opinion to bear on it that will be an important negotiation of assumptions about the past and its relationship to the present.

Social Capital and the Material World

samuel[dot]jones@demos[dot]co[dot]uk ( Sam Jones ) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:06:57 UT

Last week, I spoke at a summit on Conservation Education convened by the Textile Conservation Centre. I presented the interim thinking from our project, Saved for the Nation.

I've put the speech and the presentation I gave on the website. They outline one of the ideas we are developing in the project, which is about the symbolism of caring for the material world, and what it means in relation to wider agenda, from identity and communities, to building cultural literacy.

Caring for the Material World

samuel[dot]jones@demos[dot]co[dot]uk ( Sam Jones ) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:37:21 UT

Simon Jenkins wrote an article in Good Friday's Guardian in which he made the case that 'the dazzling walls of medieval England deserve a bold restorer'. It's good to see conservation getting coverage. As discussion of identity intensifies, culture and heritage are increasingly being looked to as sources for that identity, and points around which we can commune. However, what is often forgotten in this debate is that much of that culture and heritage exists only because it is cared for and that care, in itself, has symbolic value. Care for our past can be undertaken at a number of levels, from items of national importance and similarly grand complexity, like the Mary Rose, to the more personal decisions we take not to leave a treasured photograph in the sunshine or not to put a valued ornament in a vulnerable position. Each of these is a point on the same spectrum that relates to the care - and value - of the material world around us.

The ultimate point of Simon Jenkins' article is that conservation provides us with means to reassess the past and approach aspects of our history anew. While he focuses on medieval wall-painting, he might just have easily have written about the National Trust's conservation of the Maori meeting house at Clandon, in which members of the Maori community worked with conservators to ensure that the project reflected their concerns, and that - as a focus for the UK Maori community - the symbolism of caring for the meeting house is observed and its meaning presented to others.

As we continue our work on the sector, this is a theme we will develop. Conservation has much to offer, not simply in playing an integral role in the heritage sector, but also in providing the means to engage communities in caring for the world around them.

Future in the Scales

samuel[dot]jones@demos[dot]co[dot]uk ( Sam Jones ) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:16:55 UT

Conservation tends only to figure in the media, and hence the public imagination, when individual cases throw the spotlight on the restorative skill of conservators. The Qing vases at the Fitzwilliam Museum provide a good example.

Today, this example of how to restore a Stradivarius violin after it had been crushed figured on the BBC's homepage, no less.

The point about conservation, however, is that much of it focuses on preventive work - 'how do you stop vases getting smashed' etc. - and the work that goes into caring for the collections that play so integral a part in shping our collective identity or in caring for objects of importance to individuals. This, however, isn't going to make the BBC homepage, which means that the tremendously valuable work that conservators do and all the symbolism that it represents in terms of caring for our cultural environment can easily go unnoticed.

In this project, and in the light of the impending closure of some conservation schools as a result of budget cuts, we're examining how to raise awareness of the sector's importance and how, in a world in which cultural provision itself will play a different role, the skills base that conservators will need is likely to change.