AIC 53rd Annual Meeting

The field of cultural heritage is experiencing a profound reckoning regarding whose culture is preserved and why, while also addressing the existential threat posed by the climate crisis. Facing these challenges requires leadership skills to navigate the tensions between the histories we inherited, current field needs, and uncertain futures–no leadership training program currently exists that directly speaks to the work we do. Our collective, comprising national, regional, institutional, and independent partners is laying the groundwork for a pilot program. This session previews the earliest stages of building with opportunities to get involved in the future.

Imagine, what could conservation leadership training for our field look like? What are the characteristics of great leaders? What does it mean to lead with a foundation of cultural equity? And why does this matter? We are shaping space for a national Summit (Washington, DC 2025) with panels and working group sessions to address these questions and collectively form building blocks of a NEW Conservation Leadership Program with a foundation in cultural equity (pilot 2026). We need your imagination and action.

Americans for the Arts defines cultural equity as "Embodying the values, policies, and practices that ensure that all people — including but not limited to those who have been historically underrepresented based on race/ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geography, citizenship status, or religion — are represented” in the development of policy and fair distribution of programmatic, financial, and informational resources. Despite significant efforts to diversify the conservation field, the demographics in 2022 are still 80% white and 76% female (Mellon Foundation, Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey). Such a concentration of power and resources is contrary to cultural equity.

This matters because our decisions regarding collections are not theoretical. Our training, to preserve cultural heritage (artifacts), which focuses on “maintaining in an original or existing state” has also preserved systems of structural racism. Conservators require capacity building skills to facilitate cultural equity in our roles preserving history. Efforts to diversify the field will fail without creating conditions for inclusive cultures of belonging and attentiveness to the six conditions of systems change: policies, practices, resource flows, relationships & connections, power dynamics, and mental models (belief systems). 

This work is for leaders, no matter what age or positional authority, who want to further their skills within their community and organization.The Summit and subsequent Conservation Leadership Program focuses on conservators and allied professionals who have identified a need to shift the field and desire to be part of the collaborative efforts that impact systems change. Is this you?

Leadership takes many forms: management positions, organizational advocacy, committee work, and self-leadership (by example). The goal of this collaboration is to shift the field of cultural heritage preservation at a national level towards radical inclusion and cultural equity; thus ensuring the legacies of many instead of a few and catalyzing responsive succession planning. This four-year project, a first of its kind, offers a platform for dialogue and direction at a critical juncture in the field's evolution.