What if your passion is the challenge of having to deal with whole collections, departments, teams, or even your own business, and how to manage them? In recent years, preventive and management tasks have become high marks in many conservators’ careers. The third and last session of the conference will focus, for this reason, on the preventive and management-related side of conservation. How can we find these management/directive positions? How do we relate with other team members and with professionals from other areas such as curators, art historians, producers and/or suppliers, to name a few? Which skill sets will help us to stand out?

The panel of the third and last session will reflect on the value of prevention and management in conservation-restoration, and will consider why these roles have gained so much recognition in the conservation world. When we talk about managing businesses or collections in museums or other types of institutions, most conservators, whether freelancers or employees, will find themselves working with professionals in adjacent fields, such as curators, art movers, insurance agents, to name but a few. How does the conservator relate to these different colleagues? How do these roles meet and where do they overlap? What is it like to work in these positions within multidisciplinary teams in terms of authority issues, daily tasks, work conditions and required skills? These topics will be covered during this discussion with the aim to understand how preventive conservation and management can be a viable professional path for emerging conservators. Other issues that may be covered relate to the search for job opportunities, appropriate salary, professional associations, and finally the influence of Covid-19 in daily work.

Panel of this session:

Hélia Marçal
(Moderator)