Research Fellowship Project
February 2020
Project Title: Crossing the Ice Archive: Applying Time-Based Art Conservation Principles for the Preservation of an Applied Arts and Sciences Collection
Cultural institutions have always grappled with the challenge of preserving obsolete technological collections in a way that represents the functional life of an object and its context authentically. As the physical world becomes more embedded within the virtual, this challenge continues to expand and so museums will need to develop new ways of thinking about the preservation and display of works that are variable, iterative and technological in nature. As the primary case study, Crossing the Ice archives, this research will investigate the potential cross over of contemporary conservation ethics and digital preservation between applied arts and science collections and time-based artworks.
Asti Sherring is a senior time-based art conservator at The Art Gallery of New South Wales. Sherring completed a Bachelor of Media Arts with honours from Sydney University in 2005. She then completed a Post-Graduate Certificate in photographs conservation (Melbourne University) in 2011 and a Masters of Materials Conservation specialising in paper and photographic materials in 2012. Previously, Sherring has worked at such notable institutions as The Biennale of Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art and The National Archives of Australia. Sherring undertook a photographs conservation fellowship at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2014. In 2017, Sherring began postgraduate research in the form of a PhD at the University of Canberra exploring the cultural, institutional and perceived barriers around variable, technological based collections in heritage collections.