Why it is Important to Preserve Art and Cultural Historical Heritage
Cultural heritage preservation is developing in a changing world and preservation professionals need to adapt to changes. There is a lesson to be learnt from changes in the field of medicine. The medical field at one time was governed by the decisions of doctors. Today many in the medical field contribute to the health of members of a community. The contribution of allied health professionals to a modern health system is widely acknowledged. Take for example a patient who suffers a stroke, the doctor, the nurse, the physiotherapist, the occupational therapist, the social worker, the pharmacist, the speech pathologist etc, etc all have a role in helping the patient to recover. Why should the field of cultural heritage preservation be any different? Allied cultural heritage preservation professionals (ACHP Professionals) which include conservators, preventative conservation framers, archivists, librarians, curators, and other relevant custodians of heritage, all have an important part to play in preserving the nation’s cultural heritage. Medicine has many self-help programs to enable individuals to preserve their health. ACHP Professionals should be looking at similar strategies to motivate individual society members to, first identify the cultural heritage in their possession and secondly, to preserve these items of value. Custodians of historical heritage should be provided with the necessary information to do both.
Sadly, while society is increasingly informed of improved health standards, much of society knows very little about developments which have taken place in preserving heritage or even why there is a need to be preserving our heritage.
Although the following words were written in the UK, they are no less relevant in Australia!
“Some would say that the profession of conservation lacks sufficient influence due to its small size relative to other fields of endeavour. Others would say that we are insular and have not made sufficient effort to reach out to other stakeholders in heritage in order to inform them of the value of what we do. Still others would say that we have been unwilling to involve others in our decision making and hence they lack both the understanding and investment that leads to support.” (Conservation in Crisis, The International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works [ICC]).
It is not only conservators that may be guilty of being too insular, but all allied heritage preservation professionals could feel some guilt. Sure, conservators need to look at how to market their value to the wider community, but so do preventative conservation framers, archivists, curators, and all others who are committed to preserving cultural heritage.
Allied heritage preservation professionals need to move away from the economic values of heritage and focus more on the social values. The value of heritage preservation to a community’s social fabric far exceeds the financial benefits to the community. Unfortunately, Federal and state governments are influenced by financial factors (instrumental impact) and very little, if any, on social benefits (social impact) when determining funding to heritage preservation. There is very little information on the social values of preserving heritage. Consequently the nation’s governing bodies have misdirected perceptions of the importance of cultural heritage preservation. Samuel Jones (It’s a Material World, Caring for the Public Realm) realistically raises the question, what are heritage preservation professionals doing to reverse these attitudes? To remain insular means to remain complacent and governments will continue to give little priority to cultural heritage preservation. While some conservators in collections houses run the risk of doing little or nothing, there are conservators and other allied professionals working in the private arena who are attempting to alert society to the need to preserve cultural heritage and its importance to society values.