Acting on Behalf of Objects? Conservators' Reflections on Their Professional Role

摘要

This paper seeks to give insight into conservators' reflections about their practice and professional role. Ecclesiastical art from and in churches is an example where a variety of claims can be present and trigger diverse approaches to conservation and restoration. In this study we approached ecclesiastical art as a gateway to insight into conservator-colleagues' experiences and their views on decision-making, prevailing ethical boundaries, and the conservator's professional role. To gain access to the practitioners' own words and reasoning, in-depth interviews with seven conservators were chosen as a method. The interviews were analysed using a variant of qualitative analysis with an ideal of a theory-free starting point and by taking a constructivist and inductive approach. Through coding, themes and theories emerged from the data, which gave insight into a Norwegian status quo of practice, three emerging categories or topics caught our special interest and are described and discussed in this paper. The category, Conservation is a narrow path, gives an account of internal and external restrictions in the field. Internalised ethical restrictions and financial limitations are most often determining factors for conservator's decisions. The second category, Acting on behalf of objects, shows that conservators tend to feel obliged to the objects rather than to stakeholders. They understand their roles as defenders and mediators of the object. Conservators' potentially emotional closeness to the object is discussed. The experts should have the strongest voice, refers to the fact that stakeholders' opinions are only sparingly involved in decision-making among the interviewed conservators. Instead, projections of possible interests of stakeholders are often part of the conservators' basis for decision-making. However, external preconditions, as the mandates given by authorities, and financial issues play a role in the rather top-down nature of communication and decision-making. In light of (recent) claims for more people-based decision-making there seems to be a gap between theory and practice. Nonetheless, the authors argue that the conservator's engagement for and with the material object still is a necessary point of departure for conservation endeavors.