Joining Hands for Heritage

Posted by Admin on Wednesday, August 5th, 2020

By Anuja Mukherjee & Bhasha Shah
Art Conservators, The City Palace Museum, MMCF, Udaipur

As art enthusiasts, we have always tried to spread awareness about art and cultural heritage amongst as many people as possible. This is important to instil appreciation regarding the value of our collective heritage; hoping this will help generate a feeling of responsibility in the society towards saving the same.

Our journey, at The City Palace Museum, Udaipur as art conservators, has been extremely fulfilling and enriching. Apart from the conservation treatment we do in the laboratory, it is also essential that artworks displayed in the galleries and kept in storages must be maintained in good conditions. To achieve this, a conservator needs cooperation from the extended museum staff as well. They can act as the eyes and ears of the conservator and give ground reports on damages and deterioration before matters go out of hand.

We thought of involving the museum attendants as stakeholders in this mission to safeguard the rich history of Mewar and hence, not so long ago we charted out a series of training sessions. In the beginning, the attendants were made aware about the various factors which can damage the artworks and how they can play a major role in preserving these by simply being more alert and cautious. As a museum representative in the galleries, they shared some stories from their bitter sweet experiences with museum visitors. These stories portrayed their sensitivity towards the artworks but in few cases they also showed challenges while dealing with museum visitors. To overcome this, we shared few basic soft skills with them through examples to cope with such difficulties. At the end of the session, one of the museum attendants said;

“Now we know how a simple touch by a thousand visitors in a single day can damage the artefacts to a great extent. Hence, we are going to be extra careful for artefacts that are in open such as wall paintings which are prone to more damage especially during peak hours in the museum”
(Translated from original)

Training session for museum attendants on ‘Safe handling and care of artworks’ with conservators

To practically implement the new learnings, a hands-on session on safe handling and care of artworks was conducted for the museum attendants. Our primary focus through this session was to help establish an understanding of these concepts through live demonstration and active participation. Surprisingly, the attendants showed great enthusiasm to learn the best practices and the way they encouraged each other during the sessions displayed their teamwork and dedication towards work. Their willingness to adopt new cleaning methods and materials and their sense of curiosity to know about the reasons for rejecting the old practices was appreciative. A response from one of the attendants was;

“We did not realise that something as strong as a stone sculpture can also get damaged if neglected, hence now we will use proper cleaning methods and equipments for them”
(Translated from original)

Attendants being introduced to the equipments in the conservation laboratory by the conservator

In order to sum up this entire experience, we thought of keeping a special session with them in one of the most exclusive parts of the palace, i.e. the conservation laboratory. It was a unique experience for the attendants to see the 17th century Mewar paintings out of frames and the high – tech equipments used to conserve them. They understood the painstaking effort that goes into conserving a single piece of art which made them realise that through proper cleaning and everyday maintenance, they can also play an important role in preventive care of artworks. In this context, the museum attendants assured us;

“We are going to be more alert and vigilant in the future regarding factors like seepage, human carelessness and dust & dirt around the artworks. We will ensure that no artwork gets damaged due to these factors to such an extent that it requires critical treatment in the laboratory.”
(Translated from original)

Looking at the artwork closely under the microscope with the conservator

As an acknowledgement of their willingness to learn new things and participate actively throughout the programme, the organisation decided to felicitate them with participation certificates. For them, it was not just a letter from the organisation but a dose of motivation to work hard and with full enthusiasm in the coming years. We were very happy to see their excitement on receiving the certificates; the younger group clicked pictures holding their certificates and posted them on all social media platforms possible whereas some of the senior ones were overwhelmed and they told us that this certificate will be filed as part of their important documents that they have collected and saved over the years.

Distribution of certificates at the end of the training programme

As conservators, we felt satisfied that the whole training programme went off well and was successful in achieving its objective. We decided that this would not end here but we will conduct such programmes in future as well. We have been motivated to do this by seeing the passion and dedication that the attendants have shown throughout the programme. We hope to involve several other people within the museum like security personnel and museum guides, all of whom are in one way or the other equal stakeholders in the preservation of cultural heritage.