AIC 53rd Annual Meeting

What is a nonprofit regional center? This question often arises among conservation and preservation professionals. The staff at the Balboa Art Conservation Center (BACC) have spent the past four years answering it for themselves. Founded in 1975 by George Stout and Richard Buck, BACC was established to serve the collections and conservation needs of a select group of San Diego institutions. Over the decades, BACC adapted its identity and role in response to economic shifts, technological advances, fluctuating preservation interest, and social changes. Historically, BACC met its nonprofit duty by offering training fellowships and operating on a fee-for-service basis, which limited access to those who could afford it. This business model was over-reliant on earned revenue, and rendered the organization incapable of serving anyone who was unable to pay. BACC struggled to exist as a high capacity but exclusive and inaccessible organization for decades.

The retirement of a long-standing executive director at the end of 2019, along with the search for a new one in early 2020, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic and national protests following George Floyd’s murder, sparked significant institutional changes. Without an executive director, BACC staff stepped up into leadership roles. Staff envisioned a transformative era for BACC, aiming to make it relevant and responsive to the local community. They launched programs like Preserve Community Art, which focused on preserving protest art and its stories. The success of these programs confirmed the new direction for BACC. Collaborating with the board, they sought a new director who understood nonprofit work and could build community connections. They found the right person. BACC has spent the last four years making up for 46 years of exclusivity, opening its doors to all and inviting in those who were intentionally left out. Being in conversation with community partners has reshaped BACC’s mission, work, and the way the organization operates

BACC understands and acknowledges its historical role in perpetuating structural inequities and prioritizes access and equity to foster diversity and inclusion within the conservation field and broader arts community. The Center continues to provide conservation treatments while rethinking how regional conservation centers interact with collections and communities. The new vision includes inclusive conservation programs that extend access to underserved communities, support education and training, and partner with caretakers of community-based cultural collections. Additionally, BACC aims to expand knowledge in culturally conscious conservation methods by collaborating with creators and custodians of diverse cultural and ancestral collections.

This radical shift repositions BACC’s relationship with collections and communities, moving away from saviorism and charity-based service towards collective responsibility for the preservation of cultural heritage. This transformation has brought up questions about the role of regional centers and provoked varied responses from the field and funders. Some offer enthusiastic support, while others defend traditional approaches. Despite these reactions, BACC remains committed to its mission, adapting to the evolving needs of the cultural ecosystem. The Center’s renewed mission is clear: The Balboa Art Conservation Center advances the study and preservation of cultural heritage for all communities.

The vision and mission of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) includes collaboration and partnership to realize equity, empowerment and social justice for Native peoples across the Western Hemisphere. Since the founding of the NMAI, the conservation team has worked with artists and communities to care for cultural heritage. Through decades of building and maintaining these relationships, we have witnessed the benefits to our constituency, the collection items, and our staff. Our ability to be effective collaborators is ever evolving. We’ve learned how collaboration is a relational practice encompassing critical elements, such as building trust, recognizing truth, providing access, acknowledging power dynamics, following through, and ultimately preserving what is valued. These elements of effective collaboration are even more important today considering the Smithsonian Institution’s recently adopted Shared Stewardship and Ethical Returns Policy. The policy formalizes relationships between institutions and their constituencies; therefore, the success of its implementation hinges on the strength of these partnerships.   

In order to achieve partnership equity, it is vital to operate in service to the collective goal, prioritizing the group’s objectives over individual agendas. Trust serves as the foundation for any collaborative endeavor and is built on consistent and transparent communication, reliability, and mutual respect. Humility, equitable power dynamic among all stakeholders, as well as truth recognition and an understanding of historical facts and present realities are essential. Power dynamics play a significant role in collaboration; balancing power among stakeholders ensures equitable participation. Access to relevant resources and open information sharing ensures well-informed decision making. Commitment follow-through and continuity are critical to maintaining trust, demonstrating reliability and sustainably supporting long-term impact. Preserving what is valued identifies and safeguards core principles, traditions, and goals essential to the collective identity and purpose of the collaboration. 

 This presentation will include an overview of the elements of collaboration as they have developed through decades of long-term partnerships between the NMAI and indigenous partners and colleagues, building relationship along the way. This presentation will also discuss how effective collaboration continues to be shaped by the Shared Stewardship and Ethical Return policy as implemented by the NMAI and sister museums in the Smithsonian family. This presentation establishes a base for the concurrent general session submission: “NMAI Collaborative Relationships: A Focused and Critical Look” which evaluates specific examples of collaborative partnerships with various communities and colleagues across the Western hemisphere.

**Note: This abstract is prepared on behalf of the AIC Sustainability Committee in partnership with local non-profit organizations listed in the abstract.**

Natural landscapes and their non-human components are as much a part of cultural heritage as man-made materials and their intangible elements. By acknowledging the fragility of these environments, cultural heritage conservators can better engage with the natural ecological connections that are intertwined with the source of heritage and belongings made by communities local to these cultural landscapes. The concept of our project is part of a larger initiative to highlight local and significant ecological resilience concerns, and discuss their relation to cultural heritage and broader regional adaptation strategies.

For this annual meeting, we propose a talk on environmental stewardship of regional sites that are sacred to the Dakota People and other local communities, and are at-risk to climate change. Ȟaȟa Wakpá (the Mississippi River) is the second longest river in North America and represents cultural significance as a vital waterway for sustenance and transportation. The river is considered a sacred and powerful entity to many Indigenous peoples living along the Mississippi and its tributaries. For the third year in a row, extreme drought conditions in the Midwest are drawing down the river’s water levels, with widely varying precipitation patterns and flooding throughout the year attributed to impacts of climate change. Two non-profits local to the Twin Cities are addressing the environmental and cultural needs for sacred sites connected to the river. Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi, a Native-Led, East Side environmental stewardship nonprofit located in St. Paul, MN, focuses on the Lower Phelan Creek, its caves and burial sites. Based in downtown Minneapolis, Owámniyomni Okhódayapi advocates for the transformation of Owámniyomni (St. Anthony Falls), where Dakota peoples traditionally gathered for ceremonies, trade, and offerings, into a place of community healing “where Dakota history, language, and culture are visible and celebrated”. As Owámniyomni is in close proximity to the conference venue, a pre-conference tour with the non-profit is under consideration by AIC leadership.

These two organizations, both centered in Dakota values, strive to preserve their sacred connections with the land and form bonds of kinship for healing within their communities. The AIC Sustainability Committee proposes to collaborate on a talk with a representative from one or both of these organizations to promote the cultural heritage significance these sites have for Mní Sóta (Minnesota) communities and collaborative efforts to restore them. We will highlight regional perspectives and draw connections with ecological and cultural conservation communities, which have critical overlaps.

In 2019, curiosity, exploration, and a love for collections drove Martín Batallés and Erika del Pino to collaborate with the Dr. Carlos Torres de la Llosa Natural History Museum and the Secondary Education Central Library in Montevideo, Uruguay. This collaboration began as a way to imagine bridges between conservation, art, and biology, to reflect on the role of fiction in natural science exhibits, and to start asking questions about what are considered materials worth discarding in natural history collections.

Curiosa Naturalia is a visual arts and museological project that involves research, salvage, and conservation of specimens and objects that had been unmanaged in storage spaces. Taxidermy mounts, posters with illustrations, books, fossils, bones, and didactic models of animals and plants were reconditioned to create a series of small installations inside the museum galleries, in an "exhibit within the exhibit" fashion.

The beginning stages of the project were focused on building relationships with museum and library staff to generate trust and excitement about bringing collections back to life after years of neglect. An important aspect of this stage was the learning from those who had worked at the museum for years, who had institutional memory and understanding of the history of decision making and prioritization in the collection. Following that, consultations with experts in topics such as conservation, history of science, and history of natural science exhibits in Montevideo made it possible to begin to properly care for these objects and to give them a new life in a different context.

Conservation work consisted mainly in cleaning the objects and specimens. Some specimens had been so seriously neglected that they could not be recovered. These became ideal specimens to be intervened more invasively, allowing them to continue to serve their exhibit purpose but with a new identity. Conversations with museum authorities allowed for the modification of the intent of the specimens from scientific display to an artistic and evocative one.

The last stage of the project involved mounting several small exhibitions, one within each gallery of the museum and in one room of the adjoining library. On opening day, there was a tour of the space done by an actress that brought the audience into the world of curiosity and nature. After that, the installations were on display for two months, during which we continued to work with museum staff, who by then had become highly engaged with our work and whose enthusiasm for the care of the collections continued to grow. 

Curiosa Naturalia began as a project to recontextualize natural history specimens within the realm of art. Nowadays it has morphed into a collaboration with museum staff to care for collections and to tell the story of their own museum. Since then, other instances of exhibition, talks, and collaboration have stemmed from this initial phase. We like to think this project is far from finished and that the collaborations and relationships we fostered will continue to reshape Curiosa Naturalia through years to come.

The Prize Papers Project focuses on studying and digitizing the Prize Papers, a unique archive documenting global daily life during European colonial expansion. The project is a collaboration between The National Archives, UK (TNA) and the University of Oldenburg, Germany. Among these documents was found a collection of unopened packages from the Faroe Islands dating from 1807. A major scheme was developed uniting researchers, conservators, scientists, and professionals from around the globe to safely assess, record, image, open, and analyse this collection. The project was led by TNA’s conservation and research teams in close partnership with The Faroe Islands National Museum and University of Oldenburg. 

Prize-taking resulted in an extensive archive, including documents from over 35,000 captured ships. Among these ships was the Anna Marie, a Danish merchant vessel from Tórshavn to Copenhagen, seized on September 1807. The Anna Marie, one of two ships owned by the Danish king, carried mail representing about a quarter of the communication between the Faroes and Denmark that year. Among the various letters, five unopened parcels containing knitted goods and grains were found. The most remarkable was a hand-knitted red woollen sweater with a navy and white pattern, the only known example and precisely dated knitted sweater from the Faroe Islands for this period. This discovery is of major significance for Faroese society as the sweater was accompanied by a letter detailing its origin, sender, recipient, and context. Few collections offer such rich insights into early 19th-century Faroese everyday life. 

Opening these culturally significant items involved many people and irreversible decisions. Lead by the conservation team, there was a consensus to open the parcels due to their potential significance, whilst leaving one package sealed for future reference and analysis. The parcels were photographed, filmed, and photogrammetry images were taken aiming to capture every detail that would be lost once opened. The unwrapping and content reveal were then conducted in the presence of the Faroese and Oldenburg teams, researchers, and media, marking a historic moment, and providing the Faroese with the unique opportunity to uncover this new sweater design. 

The significance of this discovery was greatly enhanced by the collaboration with the Faroe Islands team. Their immediate recognition of the unique pattern and expertise in reading the letters underscored the importance of this partnership. 

The items were rehoused with each object, wrapper, cord, and letter grouped to maintain their materiality. The wool and grains are undergoing extensive analyses. Colourants have been identified, and DNA profiling, using reference materials from colleagues around the world, is being performed to determine the origin of wool. The results, expected by May 2025, will provide insights into wool trade and resources in 19th-century Faroese society. 

The value of this collection lies in its completeness, never has a knitted pattern from the Faroe Islands been dated so precisely and found in such pristine condition. The rarity of these objects and the opportunity to collaborate with a diverse spectrum of partners is what makes this project so unique in its perspective.

Repatriation is an important aspect of cultural restitution for Indigenous peoples and centers on the building and maintaining of relationships between communities and institutions. Each repatriation has a unique story to share with far-reaching impacts that span communities and generations. By exploring these stories, we learn how repatriation brings diverse people together to share knowledge and experiences, enriching our lives and work. Together with colleagues and potlatchers from the Haíłzaqv Nation, we share our story of returning the Captain Carpenter Chief’s Seat to its rightful home in Bella Bella, British Columbia, Canada. The name of the nation, Haíłzaqv, means “to speak and act correctly,” and this has been at the core of storytelling of the Chief’s Seat. This journey took many years and a diverse range of people including the Haíłzaqv knowledge holders and cross-departmental staff at Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM). After Charles Newcombe purchased the Seat in 1911, it was disassembled into four panels by an unidentified conservator at RBCM in 1976. Aside from one occasion where it was briefly assembled by museum staff for exhibit, the Seat would have remained disassembled and disconnected from its family in the silent storage of RBCM for over 113 years. The family could only access the Chief’s Seat through published photographs. Led by the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department (HIRMD) and in collaboration with RBCM staff, this Haíłzaqv treasure traveled home to Bella Bella, was reassembled by Jack Wilson, the great-great grandson of Chief Captain Carpenter (Dúqvay̓ḷá), with the help of Ian Reid and Max Johnson Sr., and reactivated at the Family Feast on July 25, 2024. This story of the Seat’s journey home demonstrates how Indigenous-led approaches to conservation and repatriation encourage us to reflect on our museum practices and develop hands-on, critical approaches towards building meaningful relationships in the space of Indigenized allyship. The repatriation of the Seat incorporated knowledge-sharing through two ceremonies: Repatriation Blessing Ceremony at Wawadit'ła in Victoria and the Family Feast at Gvúkva’aus in Bella Bella. Members from the Haíłzaqv Nation and the Indigenous Collections and Repatriation (ICAR) and Conservation Departments from RBCM were invited to witness the active, multisensory storytelling of the Seat through acts of participation, songs, dances and gift-giving at these ceremonies. Ceremonies of Náwálakv (supernatural power) were reintroduced back to the Chief’s Seat. Through this journey, we worked together with grace and respect and, above all, care for one another as living beings. With the Seat being back in the care of the family and community, its story will continue to evolve dynamically in the way it was intended to be used in potlatches. In providing this story, we hope to share acts of care taken/provided and lessons learnt in the repatriation of the Carpenter Chief’s Seat to open spaces for collaborative storytelling. As Ian Reid spoke, “[t]his [Chief’s Seat] contains all of the universe, and we must never forget that," and he was right. We were brought together in the network of stories around the Carpenter Chief’s Seat.