–Providing expertise to help restore damaged art collection

TWO internationally recognised Argentine experts in conservation and restoration of works of art will be visiting Guyana from Saturday to help restore fragile, and in some cases damaged, art collection at the National Art Gallery.

They are Mr. Néstor Barrio, Dean of the Research Institute on the Cultural Patrimony, and Ms. Damasia Gallegos, Director of the “Taller Tarea” of the Cultural Heritage Research Institute (TAREA-IIPC) at the National University of San Martín (UNSAM) in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
According to a release from the Argentina Embassy, the experts will be here from September 2 – 9, courtesy of the Fund for South-South Cooperation which financed their travel arrangements.

Their sojourn here, the embassy says, is part of a collaborative effort between the Government of Guyana, through the Ministry of Education’s Department of Culture, Youth and Sport, and the Government of Argentina, through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The job has, over a period of time, entailed the restoration and conservation, over a period of time, of a number of works of art belonging to the National Collection of Art housed at the National Gallery of Art, Castellani House, at the corner of Vlissengen Road and Homestretch Avenue.

This time around, the project will be implemented by the “Taller Tarea”, and conducted in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art of Guyana and the two TAREA-IIPC UNSAM experts.

According to the embassy, the visit is essentially exploratory in nature, whereby the Argentine team will be conducting a first assessment of the damaged works of art, after which a proposal will be put in place on the way forward to implement the project proper. Most of the damaged artwork are oil and acrylic paintings on either canvas, canvas boards, or tentest and tentest lined with fabric.

BACKGROUND
In 2014, the National Gallery of Art discovered that a number of its prized paintings and works from its repository of the National Collection had deteriorated due to several factors, and as a consequence were endangered. It was therefore considered necessary to restore the affected works. Unfortunately, Guyana does not possess the necessary technical competence to counteract the state of deterioration.

This realisation saw the then Director of Culture, Dr. James Rose, meeting with Ambassador Luis Alberto Martino on March 16, 2015 to discuss collaborative efforts between Guyana and Argentina to “treat damaged paintings.”

At that meeting, Dr. Rose presented a project proposal to the Embassy of Argentina in Guyana, outlining possible collaboration to restore paintings of Guyana’s National Collection of Art.

In a subsequent meeting, on April 25, 2017, the Argentine Ambassador and Curator (ag) of the National Gallery of Art, Castellani House, Mr. Ohene Koama, agreed that the best way forward would be to submit a proposal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Argentina to advance with a project to be implemented in stages.

According to the embassy, the proposal to advance the project was then discussed in a meeting between the Ambassador, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education’s Department of Culture, Youth and Sport, Ms. Melissa Tucker, and the Director of Culture (ag), Ms. Tamika Boatswain.

Subsequently, the Ambassador delivered the request to the Argentine Government for consideration. As a result of this, the International Cooperation Department of the Argentine Foreign Ministry confirmed the availability of a team from UNSAM to put this project in motion.

TRAINING INSTITUTE
The TAREA-IIPC UNSAM is a research and training institute whose main task is the conservation and restoration of artistic, archival and bibliographical assets in public repositories, through the use of multi-disciplinary procedures that guarantees a high quality of work using international parameters.

It has extensive experience in international and regional collaboration of conservation, preservation and restoration of cultural heritage and works of art.

The TAREA-IIPC UNSAM experts will create and install capabilities and create a pool of human resources that will receive further training in the next stages of the project. During their stint in Guyana, the Argentine experts will undertake the following tasks:

1: Works of art will be meticulously examined by experts of TAREA-IIPC UNSAM and assessment of conditions and needs for restoration and conservation will be conducted.

2: Identification of the material and techniques needed in order to restore and conserve works of art, in order to consolidate the future exhibitions of the Guyana National Collection of Art.

3: Identification of a pool of resource persons from the National Gallery of Art and other cultural institutions of Guyana, who will receive training in conservation and restoration.

This project is estimated to impact approximately 250,000 people belonging to the cultural institutions and the visual arts community in Guyana, inclusive of artists, students, researchers and the general public.

As the most important gallery in Guyana, the National Gallery of Art has a constant flow of people from all over Guyana and other countries, who regularly visit the Gallery to see the exhibitions. In this sense, the project can contribute greatly to the visibility of art in Guyana, thereby generating more interest and knowledge about the artists of Guyana.

IMPACT OF PROJECT
The project will also impact on the lives of those artists whose works need to be restored and preserved. In addition, it will have an impact on the families of the deceased artists, whose works will also be restored in this project.

In turn, the project will garner positive results for the persons who will receive training throughout the different stages of the project, and will serve other cultural and heritage institutions in Guyana, which face similar situations with needs for conservation and restoration. The persons who will participate in the training will be selected from the various cultural institutions proposed by Guyana.

Participants will be drawn from the National Gallery of Art, the E.R. Burrowes School of Art, the University of Guyana, the National Archives, the National Trust, the National Museum, the Museum of African Heritage and the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology.

For TAREA-IIPC UNSAM, participating in this project, sharing with new actors the experiences and artistic-technical knowledge of restoration and conservation of art and cultural heritage, constitutes an important intellectual and academic challenge. Through the project, horizontal cooperation will be promoted; taking into account the specific needs of each context, and it is expected to generate positive and sustainable impact for all participants.

It is also expected that the project will have an impact on research and teaching that is developed in TAREA-IIPC UNSAM. The possibility of involving other University actors in the project will be explored, for instance teachers, researchers and students. In particular, the possibility to sign bilateral cooperation agreements to increase student and teacher mobility between UNSAM and institutions of higher education involved in art training in Guyana, which will also promote the internationalisation of higher education and training between our countries.

This large-scale project will certainly serve to further strengthen ties between Guyana and Argentina and to spread awareness of preserving all expressions of the cultural heritage, among which conservation and restoration of art play a central role. As a matter of fact, this collaboration will see a number of Guyanese immensely benefiting from capacity building in this area via a series of workshops and training sessions.