Lecture: Designing a Conservation Strategy for Time-Based Media at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glenn Wharton, Clinical Professor in Museum Studies, New York University Lia Kramer, Graduate Student, Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University Lorena Ramírez-López, Time-Based Media Consultant, Small Data Industries The Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently undertaking an assessment of its time-based media holdings and its collections management practices to design a conservation program for its collection. In this free lecture, members of the project team will report their initial findings. While the aim of the assessment is to conceptualize a full program for time-based media conservation at the museum, the project also includes identifying works in urgent need of care, reviewing procedures for managing the collection, and mapping how a new conservation position would fit within existing ecosystems at the museum. The presentation will include an in-depth look at the conservation needs of two complex media works at the museum. The project comes at a time when many institutions and individual collectors are realizing the need for specialized care of their time-based media collections. Risks associated with digital corruption, technical obsolescence, and retaining the artist’s vision while migrating to new technologies demand new practices and technical skills to properly steward technology based-collections. The model developed for this assessment may be adapted to address the needs of other similar collections.