Jana Šubic Prislan Nova Gorica Museum Slovenia THE ... - ICOM-SEE

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Irena Porekar Kacafura, Eva Iles and Igor Ravbar, while for short periods we were joined also byTamara Trček Pečak, Alojz Umek and Ivo Nemec. Immediately in the first year we “discussed theemployment and training issues affecting museum conservators and the preparations forpublishing our internal gazette, in which contributions on conservation work and the profession ingeneral would appear, and which would serve as a source of information in the preparation for theprofessional examination”. This is what is said in my reports. I will now go on to describe how werealised all these plans, even though it took us nearly 20 years. All along we worked according to abroad, comprehensive programme, drawn up within the MAS every year, which we tried to makehighly professional, especially in contact with other institutions involved in the protection of culturalheritage in Slovenia and abroad. Realisation depended on the finances received from the Ministryof Culture, in connection with which we often felt unjustly overlooked and were consequently oftendissatisfied and demotivated.Museum conservators and restorers need a great deal of knowledge and many skills in order to beable to do their work well, but for a long time it seemed that no one appreciated this. We feltmarginalised, ignored and unjustly discriminated against, until we realised that often we ourselveswere not aware of the importance of our role in the process of the protection and preservation ofheritage and that we had to be more proactive. We thought that it was of key importance to appearin public, introduce ourselves, draw attention to our work, get a higher profile and become moreconvincing, thus slowly fulfilling our goals. It was not possible for us to appear as individuals or asa narrow segment of the conservation and restoration activities in Slovenia, and thus all of usworking in related institutions and associations sought each other out and united in jointcampaigns. The current dynamic state within the profession is the result of the strivings of all thosewho cared about what tomorrow would bring. We stuck to the principle that initiatives coming fromdifferent directions should be widely supported and this enabled us to successfully carry outnumerous joint projects by combining our financial resources. Although only some of us had theodd sleepless night, all of us throughout Slovenia were active: in addition to the conservation andrestoration section within the MAS and the National Museum there was also the SloveneRestoration Society, the Restoration Centre, the Academy of Fine Arts – Restoration Department,the Centre for Restoration within the Archive of the Republic of Slovenia and individuals inmuseums and galleries.Behind the scenes we took care mainly of the development of the profession, as without firmfoundations and working to a high professional standard all the rest would be unviable. One of thefirst activities that began in 1991 was the joint procurement of equipment and materials for all themuseum conservation and restoration workshops, which was financed by the Ministry of Culture.The collegiate body carefully selected and ordered suitable equipment, a great deal of which hadto come from abroad. Thus most of the workshops over a period of 10 years received micromotors,vacuum driers, digital scales, micro-sanders, polishing machines, the necessaryequipment for sulphite procedures, special lights, various small instruments, chemicals and variousconsumables. When financial support slowly began to dwindle, in order to get a better overview ofthe conditions in conservation and restoration workshops, we drew up a questionnaire that wassent out in 2001 to 26 museums with conservation workshops or museums in which conservationand restoration activities took place. We ascertained what sort of premises they had, how wellequipped they were, what materials they were capable of working on and, above all, what weretheir as yet unfulfilled needs. Even then, some workshops were still very badly equipped andbarely differed from caretakers’ storerooms. I also remember that we asked them what theirexpectations were from this joint project and one of the answers was: “Miracles.” Today I dare saythat we succeeded at least partly and provided an equal supply of basic equipment for all, as well324[CONDITION OF THE CULTURALAND NATURAL HERITAGE IN THE BALKAN REGION
as making the purchasing of equipment, specialised materials and tools from abroad much easier,as having the right equipment was one of the guarantees of professional work on the part of allthose involved. In 1992 the first programme for computerised conservation and restorationdocumentation was also created, which was replaced in 1998 by a more modern programmecalled Patina, which facilitated the unified management of conservation and restorationdocumentation for those who as yet did not have this facility within their own institution.We also participated in the drawing up of criteria for the obtaining of professional qualifications, asuntil 1992, when we replaced the title curator-conservator with conservator-restorer, we had had toadhere to the same criteria as curators. When dealing with problems connected with our status andorganisation, we looked for comparative situations in other countries. We forged the first contactswith our colleagues abroad when we took part in international gatherings and conferences, and ona few occasions also travelled (to Great Britain, Hungary and Italy) to learn things or at least to findout whether we were thinking along the right lines.In Slovenia we felt the lack of gatherings that would enable us to exchange knowledge, informationand opinions, at least informally, and so in 1995 we organised at the National Museum workshop aNew Year’s event, a practice which has continued to this day with meetings in different museumsaround Slovenia. We got to know our colleagues and their workshops and organised themedlectures. When post and telephone no longer provided sufficiently rapid access to information, wein 2001 “counted” and organised ourselves: all the employees of various workshops throughoutSlovenia thus had a name and surname, we collected their addresses, phone numbers and e-mailaddresses and messages began to circulate – the same information came to every workshop.Nowadays this unifying role is played by the website of the Slovene Restoration Society, which forall of us represents an important, easily accessible source of information without which we wouldstill be trapped in attics and basements. That is also when we found out that 75 conservatorrestorerswere employed in museum workshops, of which over a half had secondary education andhad been subsequently trained for the job, while the rest had a university degree or a higherspecialisation, the latter in particular in the area of restoring works of visual arts, as this is a specialstudy programme at the Academy of Fine Arts. Considering that most museums are of a rathercomplex character, conservator-restorers have to work on all kinds of museum materials, mostoften on archaeological finds, the quantity of which has further increased in recent years, mainlydue to extensive excavations beneath the new Slovene motorway system. According to the latestunofficial data, the educational structure has improved, but the number of regularly employed hassadly remained the same. This is why it was necessary to strive for additional education of thoseemployed, while also giving young people a chance to obtain institutionalised education in theconservation and restoration of museum objects. In 1995, the first talks were held about theestablishment of a school for museum conservator-restorers, but it is only now, with theintroduction of the Bologna system, that we are about to get a study programme at this level at theRestoration Department of the Academy of Fine Arts. The door for university education relating tomuseums and archives is thus expected to open in the academic year 2012/13. In recent years thenumber of conservator-restorers with a degree or higher level of education in various specialistareas has been increasing, whereas the number of those spending a short period in institutionsabroad or attending courses organised by international organisations or foreign professionalassociations (ICOM, ICCROM) is lower.Wanting to acquire new knowledge, we actively participated in the work of related societies inSlovenia and helped shape their programme by including our content – let me mention here ourfirst appearance in connection with the Slovene Museum Society at the assembly of museum325[CONDITION OF THE CULTURALAND NATURAL HERITAGE IN THE BALKAN REGION
Page 1: Jana Šubic PrislanNova Gorica Muse
Page 5 and 6: publication of a catalogue with sum
Page 7 and 8: hkrati služil za pripravo na strok
Page 9 and 10: Priročnika za muzejsko konservator

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