AIC 53rd Annual Meeting

In recent years, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art Department for Conservation and Scientific Research (CSR) has increased efforts to make its work known to the public. This includes the development of resources and public programs, including in-gallery cart talks and Art & Me family workshops. The success of these efforts and interest in furthering them led to the creation of the position that I now hold: an outreach specialist, with a background in education and outreach, who could develop new ways to introduce conservation to diverse audiences. This presentation will discuss the opportunities and challenges associated with establishing a conservation outreach position in our museum.

This position is unusual in several ways and required creativity in establishing standard practice. First, given the position did not require a background in conservation, initial months were focused on observation and inquiry. This period was also spent exploring existing content, which could be applied in new ways without the need to borrow excessive time from colleagues. Additionally, the whole department needed to adapt to an increase in outreach output. Conservators and scientists learned to share their work methods and identify projects that could tell conservation stories.

The establishment of this position also redefined the CSR department’s relationship with other departments, particularly Marketing and Communications (MAC) and Education. Given that CSR could begin producing programs and materials with greater independence, it was important to configure these activities into the greater fabric of the museum. Furthermore, as these departments were peers in terms of their roles in the museum, they were ideal collaborators for projects requiring more than one outreach or education staff member. Although there had been some previous collaboration with family programs, more regular channels of communication were established between CSR and other relevant departments. Through these channels, significant opportunities for collaboration took shape.

The establishment of this position has been a shared effort, making possible a number of opportunities. CSR now contributes more content to social media, resulting in regular in-depth posts about conservation. In March 2024, this led to the most popular post in museum history, with over one million views, which featured one of our paper conservators. CSR also designs and facilitates a hands-on conservation workshop for visiting students. In its first year, the program reached over one thousand sixth grade students from Fairfax County Public Schools, the ninth largest school division in the U.S. It is expected to reach a similar number of students this school year. CSR also expanded its conservation family workshops so that they now reach children ages 3-11 and occur twice as often. While the establishment of an outreach specialist position in CSR required a great deal of creativity and effort, it has not only expanded awareness of our work, but also increased our connectedness to other departments in our museum.