AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

The management of textile collections poses a series of challenges to cultural heritage professionals: (i) specific materials’ properties that affect objects’ degradation processes and may cause unpredictable change; (ii) small numbers of specialists in Brazil experienced with treating textile materials; (iii) limited storage space and resources to process and safeguard objects, and (iv) a perception of lower value than other object types such as paintings and sculptures. These challenges affect decision-making in all collection management activities, including accessioning and disposal, preservation, use, and object documentation. Consequently, it is essential to develop and improve tools to aid heritage professionals in decision-making processes.

Over the last two decades, there have been several developments towards statistical modeling of risks, change and damage that affect cultural heritage objects and their collections. These models consider environmental data and object-specific information such as material composition, condition, significance, and values, as well as the ways they are or may be used in heritage. Recently, models have also sought to include users’ expectations for the duration and care of these objects. Models can provide useful information for planning resource allocation, developing preventive conservation strategies, and informing accessioning and disposal decisions. Additionally, they serve as a tool to assess and predict the impact of change and damage on objects’ values and the ways users access and relate to them.

Our work discusses results from a survey carried out with Brazilian museum professionals, heritage researchers, and exhibition visitors, who were questioned about objects’ values and condition, ways of use, and expected future duration. Responses were analyzed using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) to map out correlations and patterns among respondent groups. These initial results are foundational for the ongoing development of a decision-making model that is informed by and centers around users’ views and expectations about modern and contemporary textile heritage objects. Following steps involve analyzing users’ attitudes towards different change scenarios and conducting degradation tests with mock-up materials.

The MCA variables cloud shows great congruence between the expectations of museum professionals and visitors regarding the future availability of objects and their collections: both would like objects and collections to be available forever for virtual exhibitions, research, educational activities, and as inspiration for making replicas or other objects. Additionally, both groups expect that collections - but not objects individually - should be available forever for in-person exhibitions. In our analysis, these prospects appear on the same axis as value categories associated with more traditional views of cultural heritage: historical, associative, age, rarity, and educational values. Alternatively, researchers both in cultural heritage and other areas expect objects and collections to be available for between 200 to 500 years for most use scenarios. Considering that it is not possible for objects to be available forever for research, in-person exhibitions, and educational activities, our model intends to provide more realistic timeframes as a planning horizon for collection managers. Professionals can then use this information to better communicate expected change and duration to other users.