Fourth Training Event for NACCA PhD Candidates, 26-30 June 2017
The fourth NACCA (The research and training programme New Approaches in the Conservation of Contemporary Art, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network) meeting was organised by Glasgow University and was hosted by the Centre of Contemporary Arts and the Glasgow School of Art. It was the second summer school, and concentrated on the work in progress. During an intense and successful three-day programme PhD researchers and supervisors met to evaluate the process and outcomes thus far.
To start off the programme, the PhD candidates presented their research projects to the EU representatives. The next day the representatives recapped the conditions of funding and evaluated the process. This was followed by a session on data management and a highly engaging course on conflict resolution skills with Taylor Clarke, a Glasgow-based organisational effectiveness and development consultancy, which granted new insights into communication and social behaviour. The day closed with a lecture by Ranald McInnes (Head of Special Projects, Historic Environment Scotland) on the rebuilding of the Mackintosh Building after its destruction in a fire in 2014, which concluded with a presentation by artist and reader Dr. Ross Birrell and culminated in a screening of A Beautiful Living Thing (2015), Birrell’s moving film prompted by the calamity. The final day was marked by great intellectual activity. The feedback sessions resulted in a vivid exchange amongst supervisors and PhD candidates on the research, stimulating new thoughts and confirming approaches. The summer school was rounded off with an invitation to ESRs to re-think and discuss the reconstruction of the Lichtballett “Hommage à New York” by Otto Piene along with Tiziana Caianielle (ZERO foundation, Düsseldorf).
Following the programme, a conference was organised. The two-day conference provided a forum for professionals, researchers, and students working across different disciplines to discuss urgent questions regarding artwork identity, permanence and impermanence, reproducibility and replication, and the role of the artist and the institution in constructing and maintaining memory. It explored these questions and other areas where artistic practice, curatorial practice, and conservation decision-making intersect through themes of materiality, memory and loss.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 642892