Time-based media art challenges conventional conservation methodologies. Can the disruption caused by new modes of practice contribute to disciplinary development? This paper reflects on teaching cultural material conservation through time-based media art. In particular, it focuses on how producing documentation engages conservation students and collecting institutions in a learning partnership. The outcomes generated by documenting time-based media art foregrounds twenty-first century conservation practices. Reflexive analysis reveals the way persistent practices and critical situations order these new modes of practice, renewing core approaches to conservation education. This paper argues that time-based media subject design can integrate emergent and established knowledge, and the exchange created enables important disciplinary updates to occur.
AICCM Bulletin, 42:1, 4-12, DOI: 10.1080/10344233.2021.2009662
Figure: Conservation Students unpacking Packman by Sean Dockray with lecturer Robert Lazarus at the University of Melbourne Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation. Photo: Katrina Watson.
Robert Lazarus 