Normal and Extraordinary Conservation Knowledge: Towards a Post-normal Theory of Cultural Materials Conservation

Abstract

The two fundamental words and concepts that have come to delineate the field of cultural materials conservation—conservation and restoration—represent an essential tension in both theory and practice. Commencing with an historical overview of the use of these two terms, their current meanings as prescribed in the ICOM-CC Definition of the Profession, are then examined drawing on Thomas Kuhn's concepts of ‘paradigm shifts’, ‘normal science’ and ‘extraordinary science’. The implications, opportunities and potential for conservation are then considered through the concept of post-normal science, to propose a democratised, community-centred theory of conservation.

Keywords:

• Cultural materials conservation
• Restoration
• Paradigm shift
• Post-normal science

Notes

1 Kuhn's ‘essential tension’ referred to that between tradition and innovation, a theme also adopted for the 2000 IIC Congress, held in Melbourne, Australia.

2 English Heritage defines National Amenity Societies as ‘Voluntary societies … established with the express purpose of preserving the art and architecture of past centuries and promoting the appreciation of such buildings and the cultures that produced them’. Others listed by English Heritage are The Ancient Monuments Society; The Council for British Archaeology; The Georgian Group; The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings; The Victorian Society; The Twentieth Century Society (English Heritage n.d.). The absence of material conservation professional bodies is interesting to note.

3 I use the term non-professional in preference to amateur, which can have disparaging connotations, suggestive of a lack of reliability or skills and knowledge. Greenwood (2007) mounts a good defence of the term and retains its use, arguing that replacement terms such as volunteer and citizen scientist also have problematic connotations. ‘Avocational practitioners', a term used by Greenwood (p. s77), is a possible substitute, but rejected in this paper. While non-professional maybe somewhat vague, in the context of this paper I use it to describe persons who are not formally certified in the specific profession within which they are involved. I consider it applicable regardless of whether they are paid or unpaid for their contribution, but recognise that it may more often apply to unpaid collaborators.

4 The Getty Conservation Institute's Agora multi-year research programme, which commenced in 1998 and resulted in a series of publications, was one of the first to locate a values-based conservation model within a broader socio-political cultural context. See <http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/newsletters/13_2/gcinews08.html>.

5 The 1984 ICOM-CC Definition of the Profession defines restoration as ‘action taken to make a deteriorated or damaged artefact understandable, with minimal sacrifice of aesthetic and historic integrity’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marcelle Scott

marcelle scott coordinated the Masters in Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne until 2013. She stepped away from that role to pursue full-time research and is currently a PhD candidate at the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the same University. Marcelle's research interests lie in the areas of conservation theory, ethics and pedagogy and how these are explicated in conservation curricula. Address: Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3010, Australia. Email: [email protected].