Online

Conference

Destruction by Design: The Legacies of Damage to Cultural Heritage (2024)

On 20 September 2024, The Victoria and Albert Museum’s Culture in Crisis Programme, in partnership with University of Stirling and V&A Dundee, staged this international conference at V&A Dundee, Scotland. The conference critically examined politically motivated, intentional damage and destruction of cultural heritage. Such acts become part of the ongoing biographies of heritage objects, monuments and places, creating difficult and contentious dilemmas about their future lives for those involved in caring for them. The conference provided an important forum for comparing historical and contemporary examples and reflecting on the consequences of different conservation, restoration and documentation policies and practices, with a view to shaping future directions.
The full event programme can be found here: https://sway.cloud.microsoft/LXuVVfVWXvgo52bm?ref=Link

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Event

Future-Proofing Heritage

The London Festival of Architecture (LFA), the V&A’s Culture in Crisis Programme, International National Trust Organisation and World Monuments Fund were pleased to work together to organise the event ‘Future-Proofing Heritage: Sustainability and Resilience.’ This in-person event, hosted at the V&A in South Kensington, London, explored different case studies and approaches to the risks that heritage structures face. Through this event we brought together the voices of heritage preservation specialists working around the world, each embarked on projects that dealt with heritage buildings and structures at risk and what steps are being taken to preserve and sustain these important monuments to our past.

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Webinar

Preserving the Past: Strategies for Culture in Crisis – Fire

The first webinar was on the subject of Fire featured Nina Kjølsen Jernæs (Paintings Conservator at NIKU, the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research) and Emma Coburn (Heritage Lead for Programmes, Resourcing and Risk at the Houses of Parliament) who discussed the latest research on fire protective textiles for heritage collections and reflections on the 2020 Watts Gallery fire.

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Webinar

Preserving the Past: Strategies for Culture in Crisis – Water and Flooding

The second webinar in the series was on the subject of Water and Flooding and featured guests Andrea Richards and Dr Alex Rock. Andrea Richards is a Caribbean public archaeologist with extensive project management experience with a focus on climate change and disaster risk reduction and management of heritage. Dr Alex Rock is Director of Commercial and Operations for Derby Museums, he led on Derby Museums flooding response after the flood at Museum of Making and also sits on the NMDC culture and ecology working group.

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Webinar

Preserving the Past: Strategies for Culture in Crisis – Earthquakes

The third webinar in the series was on the topic of Earthquakes and our guests were Les Borsay and Dr Rohit Ranjitkar. Les Borsay is the Emergency Planning Specialist for the J. Paul Getty Trust Security & Visitor Services Department, handling emergency preparedness for the Getty Center and Getty Villa in Los Angeles and Dr Rohit Ranjitkar is the Director of Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust and has led on the restoration and recovery of Kathmandu Valley’s heritage effected by the 2015 earthquake.

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