Conserving Active Matter

Considers the future of conservation and its connection to the human sciences.  This volume brings together the findings from a five-year research project that seeks to reimagine the relationship between conservation knowledge and the humanistic study of the material world. The project, “Cultures of Conservation,” was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and included events, seminars, and an artist-in-residence.  The effort to conserve things amid change is part of the human struggle with the nature of matter. For as long as people have made things and kept things, they have also cared for and repaired them. Today, conservators use a variety of tools and categories developed over the last one hundred and fifty years to do this work, but in the coming decades, new kinds of materials and a new scale of change will pose unprecedented challenges. Looking ahead to this moment from the perspectives of history, philosophy, materials science, and anthropology, this volume explores new possibilities for both conservation and the humanities in the rethinking of active matter.

Table of Contents:
Preface: Report on a Research Project Acknowledgments Introduction: Conserving Active Matter and the Conservator Soon Kai Poh Introduction: Conserving Active Matter and the Historian Peter N. Miller 1.    Philosophy one Introduction: Active Matter—Some Initial Philosophical Considerations Ivan Gaskell and A. W. Eaton two The Expressive Import of Degradation and Decay in Contemporary Art Sherri Irvin three The Look of Age: Appearance and Reality Carolyn Korsmeyer four  The Aesthetics of Repair Yuriko Saito   five Death and Entanglement: Some Thoughts about Life, Love, and the Aims of Art Conservation Alva Noë 2.    History six Introduction: Conserving Active Matter and the Art Historian’s Craft Ittai Weinryb seven Active Matter in Presocratic Thought? André Laks eight Active Matter: A Philosophical Aberration or a Very Old Belief? Guido Giglioni nine Oak and Oil, Chalk and Flint—Rood Screens and Churches Spike Bucklow ten  Bread and Wine, Body and Blood Lee Palmer Wandel 3.    Indigenous Ontologies eleven Introduction: For the Lives of Things—Indigenous Ontologies of Active Matter Aaron Glass twelve  Living Knowledge in Cultural Collections Sven Haakanson thirteen The Orator’s Dilemma: Wampum as Material, Media, Medicine, and Memory Jamie Jacobs   fourteen Always Becoming Better Stewards: Caring for Collections at the National Museum of the American Indian Kelly McHugh fifteen Hoki Mauri: Bring Back the Life Essence Rose Evans 4.    Materials sixteen Introduction: Developing Informed and Sustainable Responses to the Alteration of Cultural Artifacts; Materials Engineering Meets Material Culture Jennifer L. Mass seventeen Contextualizing the Installation of Tania Bruguera’s Untitled (Havana 2000) Chris McGlinchey eighteen Moving beyond the Binaries: Exploring the Active Matter of Metal Soaps in Paint Francesca Casadio nineteen Characterizing the Immaterial: Noninvasive Imaging and Analysis of Stephen Benton’s Engine no. 9 Marc Walton, Pengxiao Hao, Marc Vermeulen, Florian Willomitzer, and Oliver Cossairt twenty Making Meiji Red: Semiotic Activity in the Colors of Japanese Woodblock Prints, 1864–1900 Marco Leona and Henry D. Smith II Appendix: Events of the Research Project Conserving Active Matter Index Contributors  

About the Author :
Peter N. Miller is dean and professor at Bard Graduate Center. Soon Kai Poh is a Conservation as a Human Science Fellow at Bard Graduate Center.  

Review :
"This book pursues conservation as an interdisciplinary endeavor, bringing together scholars of material culture, history, philosophy, Indigeneity, material scientists and conservators to take a stake in conservation, “together-apart,” borrowing from Karen Barad, in a mindful way and on a scale that is unprecedented to date."