Vivian van Saaze has a dual appointment as senior specialist Modern and Contemporary Art at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), and as Associate Professor Conservation Theory and Museum Studies at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. She specialises in the study of museum practices of curating and collection care, focusing on the challenges arising from digitalisation and new artistic genres such as installation art, digital art, and performance art. Vivian sits on the steering committees of the International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art (INCCA) and the Foundation for the Conservation of Contemporary Art (SBMK), as well as the Scientific Board of the Netherlands Institute for Conservation + Arts + Science + (NICAS), and the European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science (E-RIHS). She is a member of the Editorial Boards of Springer’s book series Studies in Art, Heritage, Law, and the Market, and Brill’s Studies in Art and Materiality.
Between 2015 and 2022, she was founding director for the Maastricht Centre of Arts and Culture, Conservation and Heritage (MACCH), a transdisciplinary research center at Maastricht University. She acted as interim project leader of the Marie-Curie Innovative Training Network New Approaches for the Conservation of Contemporary Art (NACCA), and was programme director of the Master’s Programme Arts and Heritage: Policy, Education and Management at Maastricht University. She is author of Installation Art and the Museum. Presentation and Conservation of Changing Artworks (Amsterdam University Press, 2003) and, together with Renée van de Vall, Contemporary Art Conservation: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice (Spinger, 2023).