The Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation is pleased to announce the 2024 recipients of the Alumni Professional Venture Fund awards:

Mariana DiGiacomo (Preservation Studies PhD Program, 2019)

Project: Social media as a tool for access to conservation

Short videos on social media platforms have become one of the most important means of communication, education, and entertainment worldwide. This project aims to bring content on conservation and conservation of natural history collections to a broad audience of English and Spanish speakers through the use of humor and excitement for the topics explored. The purchase of filming equipment will provide a more seamless recording experience that prioritizes the care and preservation of the objects being captured.

Yadin Larochette (WUDPAC Class of 2004)

Project: Developing Carbon Literacy Coursework for the Cultural Sector in the United States

The climate crisis, which evidence has shown is exacerbated by carbon emissions, is an increasing threat to cultural heritage and the planet.  The goal of this project is to gain training certification and develop certified content for a two-day seminar under the umbrella of the UK- based Carbon Literacy Project for the cultural sector here in the US. This seminar, which will be offered through various channels, is aimed at inspiring stakeholders to take meaningful actions towards reducing both their individual and collective carbon footprints.

Adrienne Lundgren (WUDPAC Class of 2001)

Project: Manufacturing Dry Collodion—Dr. Richard Hill Norris

Dry collodion was used to produce photographic negatives in the 19^th century.  These negatives could be handmade but were also the first to be manufactured-- sold ready for use, straight from the box.  Overlooked in the current scholarship, this process was widely employed by outdoor, amateur and scientific photographers from 1856 to the late 1890’s.  The University of Birmingham holds the only surviving archive of one of these manufacturers, that of Dr. Richard Hill Norris. These funds will support Adrienne Lundgren's research travel costs to Birmingham, as well as to London's Victoria and Albert Museum, which holds several boxes of Hill Norris plates.   

Margalit Schindler (WUDPAC Class of 2022)

Project: Conservation Clinics—Storytelling and Community Building

There are many Jewish families and communities in Los Angeles, diverse in terms of traditional practice and denomination, age and background, family size and shape, country of origin, and more. These folks have meaningful objects that they care for at home and have voiced a desire to have a conservator offer insight and support. This series of Conservation Clinics is an opportunity for reciprocal sharing - people telling their stories through objects and sharing what they do or have done to care for them, and a conservator adding material and manufacture insight, sharing what museums might do for a similar object, and offering archival storage materials for those who want to rehouse the objects they brought. The goal of this project is to build community by elevating meaningful objects and sharing the stories they evoke.

The Department of Art Conservation's annual Professional Venture Fund offers grants ranging from $500 - $2500 to honor and support the work of alumni from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation and the Preservation Studie​s Doctoral Program. Grants many be used to support the development and implementation of community or outreach programming, facilitate the creation and/or delivery of workshops and seminars at all levels, advance initiatives that may strengthen research and scholarship resulting in blog posts or peer-reviewed articles such as collections-based travel or other educational opportunities, or purchase urgently needed equipment. Recipients are expected to use these grants to strengthen their knowledge, impact, and/or practice and the reach and partnerships of the art conservation profession.

The first cohort of Venture Fund projects included the initial conservation assessment and consultation for building long-term collections care programs for the National Art Gallery in Sri Lanka, attendance at a nine-week online continuing education class hosted by the University of Washington, the creation of a new podcast for heritage professionals, and the purchase of video and microscope cameras and lighting equipment for sharing conservation work. The next set of awardees included the 3D Documentation of Black Historic Landscapes, a project to increase accessibility of 2-D Works of art for museum visitors with blindness and low vision, and a project to document the damage and destruction of twentieth-century architectural heritage in Ukraine.

For more information about the alumni Professional Venture Fund, contact Susan Behrens at behrens@udel.edu.​