Conservators Combating Climate Change

In the final episode, Marie and Natalya share reflections on creating season two, updates for future projects, and extend an invitation to join an informal Zoom meeting with some of Season Two's guest speakers on the 1st of July at 6:30EST.

Zoom Meeting info:

1 July 2021, 6:30 EST

In the first of a two part episode, Natalya and Marie talk to two professors at Rutgers University, Dr. Trinidad Rico and Dr. Victoria Ramenzoni, about the overlap in heritage and environmental conservation. Victoria shares her thoughts on the complexity of defining and creating sustainable protocols, Trinidad reflects on how her early training in art conservation affects her current practice in critical heritage studies, and Marie and Natalya reflect on highlights of their two answers.

Full speaker bios:

Victoria Ramenzoni is an environmental anthropologist specialized in human behavioral ecology, community based approaches to conservation, and marine and coastal policies. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, she studies how socio-ecological factors shape communities adaptation to climate change and extreme events, the impact of environmental uncertainty on decisions about resource use among coastal households, and the development of more inclusive participatory policies for coastal environments. Her work is concentrated in Indonesia (Flores and Kalimantan), Cuba, and the U.S. where she recently studied the impacts of COVID across northeastern fisheries. Dr. Ramenzoni received a BA in Anthropology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia Department of Anthropology in 2014. She was awarded a prestigious Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where she served for over a year and a half in the integration of social science methods across the agency. After working as an Associate Research Scientist and International Engagement Officer at the Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, for over three years, Dr. Ramenzoni joined the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University in 2018 as an Assistant Professor in Marine Policy.

Trinidad Rico is Associate Professor and Director of the Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies Program in the department of art history at Rutgers University, but this year she is an ACLS Burkhardt Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. At Rutgers, she is also Associate Graduate Faculty in the departments of anthropology, landscape architecture, history, georgraphy, and the school of planning and public policy, which reflects the interdisciplinary nature and impact of her work. Dr Rico holds a BA in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge, an MA in Principles of Conservation from University College London, and a PhD in Anthropology from Stanford University. Her work examines the global rise of heritage industries, its civil societies, and discourses, and she is currently writing a monograph about cultures of preservation across the Muslim world.

In this episode, Natalya and Marie are joined by Michael Henry, Dale Kronkright, and Pita Judy Lopez about their collaborative work with the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and Foundation and how they have leveraged institutional resources and mandates to support local community needs. This episode also explores the overlap and integration of traditional knowledge into modern conservation practice and the capacity for technical conservation practice to have impact beyond institutional boundaries.

Related links:

In this episode, Emma and Natalya speak candidly with Kate Fugett, Objects Conservator at the American Museum of Natural History, about the coalition of conservation, collection, and museum professionals she is actively forming. We discuss a broad range of topics related to community engagement and share practical advice gained from our personal experiences attempting to enact change at our respective institutions.  If you are interested in joining Kate in her goal to create a more sustainable and equitable future, please get in contact with her at Kate.Fugett@gmail.com. 

Learn more about initiatives we mention in this episode: 

In this episode, we talk with Maddie Cooper, Graduate Fellow at the Winterthur/University of Delaware in Art Conservation about how her pre-program experiences in South Florida shaped her decision to specialize in Preventive Conservation and how she has curated her graduate school experience to focus in disaster planning and response. 

Resources:

In this episode, we welcome Henry McGhie, bird ecologist, former head of the Manchester Museum’s curatorial team, and principal of the consultancy Curating Tomorrow, to discuss sustainability, climate change, and taking action in museum/cultural heritage spaces. 

Introduction to the American Institute for Conservation's Emerging Conservation Professionals Network's new podcast series, "Conservators Combating Climate Change" by hosts Emma Hartman and Natalya Swanson.  

Contact us at: ecpn.aic.digitalplatforms [at] gmail [dot] com. 

Resources