Puerto Rico Preserving Photography Conservation.

Preserving Cultural Identity: Conference Explores Importance of Photograph Conservation after Disaster in Puerto Rico documents a three-day conservation programme held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in February 2020 and coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The programme brought together more than sixty specialists working with photography and photographic collections to examine the preservation of photographs following natural disasters. Workshops and lectures were led by Debra Hess Norris, professor and chair of the Department of Art Conservation at the University of Delaware and an internationally recognised specialist in the conservation of photographic materials. The programme developed in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which made landfall in Puerto Rico on 20 September 2017 and caused extensive damage to homes, public buildings, museums, libraries, archives and private collections. Photographic materials are particularly vulnerable following hurricanes and flooding because water and prolonged high humidity can damage emulsions and paper supports, cause photographs to adhere to one another and encourage rapid mould growth. Effective disaster response therefore involves assessment, stabilisation, careful drying or freezing where appropriate, documentation and the establishment of priorities for material that cannot immediately receive full conservation treatment.

The short video also addresses photography as part of Puerto Rico's cultural record rather than simply as a collection of individual images. Family photographs, studio portraits, newspaper archives, institutional collections and historical negatives can preserve information about people, buildings, communities and events that may exist nowhere else, making their survival particularly significant when the physical places they document have themselves been damaged or destroyed. The conference therefore connected the technical conservation of photographic objects with the preservation of social and cultural identity after disaster. Produced by FEMA videographer Eduardo Martinez in San Juan on 5 February 2020, the film records specialists discussing and demonstrating approaches intended to improve the ability of photographers, archivists and collection managers to respond to future emergencies. At just under two minutes in length, it provides a concise record of a wider conservation initiative concerned with protecting photographic archives in a region where hurricanes, flooding, high humidity and other environmental conditions create continuing risks to photographic collections.

Camera is on:
Thank you for all your support.

Preserving Cultural Identity: Conference Explores Importance of Photograph Conservation after Disaster in Puerto Rico.
Produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Video by Eduardo Martinez.
Source: Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS).
Licence: Public Domain.

#photography #photo #puertorico #puertoricohistory #archives #preservation #disasterrecovery #hurricanemaria #culturalheritage #culturalpreservation #conservation #disasterpreparedness