Have you ever wondered about loss of information in archives caused by material decay? Or about what makes an archival photograph fit-for-purpose? If so, I will be exploring these questions as part of my PhD.
One of the questions the research project ‘Lifetime of Colour Photographs in Mixed Archival Collections’ aims to tackle is the way material degradation is linked to information content in photographic images. In particular, the point where photographs are no longer ‘fit for purpose’ is of interest. To understand this better I will be exploring this question with various groups of stakeholders – curators and custodians to photographic collectors, scientists and the general public – in order to capture a variety of opinions in a number of workshops.
The aim of the 1-hr workshops is to gauge the opinion on the point at which changes in information content is no longer considered to be acceptable for photographs in archives. The workshops will start with a brief introduction to the project and the exercise. The assessment exercise will consist of a classification exercise of photographs at different stages of degradation. This will be followed by a brief discussion on any issues arising from the exercise. Following the workshops and data analysis, a report on the results of the workshop will be circulated to all participants.
If you are interested in these issues, and want to voice your opinion you can visit the workshop webpage for more information or even better you can register your interest to participate in one of the workshops.
Workshops so far are planned for the following days at the Heritage Science Laboratory (Gordon House), 29 Gordon Street, WC1H 0PP, London.
Monday 4th April 2011 at 4pm
Monday 11th April 2011 at 4pm
Friday 15th April 2011 at 4pm
Thursday 5th May 2011 at 4pm
Tuesday 10th May 2011 at 5pm
Friday 13th May 2011 at 1pm
Friday 13th May 2011 at 4pm
If none of these dates are appropriate, do let me know as further workshops are planned for the future.
I look forward to meeting you at the workshops!
Filed under: Events and Activities, Experiments and Methodology, Public Engagement, Research Process, archival collections, assessment exercise, chromogenic photographs, colour photographs, curators, custodians, degraded photographs, fitness for purpose, Heritage Science Laboratory, heritage scientists, material decay, photographic collectors, photographic conservators, photographic dyes, photographs
