Environmental Guidelines—An Australian Perspective

Abstract

In 2018, the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material (AICCM) embarked on the ambitious Environmental Guidelines Project. As the project gets underway, the author looks back at the formative research undertaken by Emeritus Professor Colin Pearson from 1990 through to the early 2000s. His approach to the management of the collection environment was both culturally and environmentally aware and led to the development of climate-specific environmental guidelines and collection care strategies. In this paper, the author recounts personal reflections on Professor Pearson’s enlightened and progressive teaching and looks at the ongoing global debate on sustainable cultural heritage practices within the Australian context.

Keywords:

• Environmental guidelines
• Sustainability
• Collection care
• Temperature
• Relative humidity

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the members of the AICCM Environmental Guidelines Taskforce in recognition of the investment they made to develop the Interim Guidelines. The author also acknowledges and thanks Steve King for sharing personal accounts and unpublished manuscripts. Thanks also to Ian Cook, Vinod Daniel and Dr Ivan Cole for providing insights of their work with Professor Pearson; to Julian Bickersteth for his encouragement, advice and support; to MaryJo Lelyveld for her vision and unwavering enthusiasm; to Dr Joel Taylor and Foekje Boersma for enlightening discussions and sage advice and to Chris Saines cnzm, QAGOMA Director, for supporting the author’s involvement in the AICCM Environmental Guidelines Project.

Author Biography

Amanda Pagliarino is Head of Conservation & Registration at QAGOMA and leads a team of conservators, registrars, technicians and photographers engaged in a wide range of collection management and exhibition work. Amanda received a Bachelor of Applied Science, Conservation of Cultural Material from the University of Canberra and is a sculpture conservator with a specialisation in contemporary art installations. She has particular interests in the conservation of plastics and polymers, and audio visual works of art. Recently she has turned her attention to the collection environment and is the AICCM Convenor of the Environmental Guidelines Committee and Coordinator of the Environmental Guidelines Project. Amanda is a past recipient of the AICCM Conservator of the Year award.

ORCID

Amanda Pagliarino http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2515-4033