Art and Materials Conservation Commons^™

Souvenirs From Southeast Asia, Kaniya A. Epps

Undergraduate Research Conference

In this paper, I will discuss my research for the Souvenirs from Southeast Asia exhibition that I curated for The W Galleries in the 2026 spring semester. I was a student worker for the Galleries at the time, and I was the first person to do in-depth research on this material. We received this artwork in 2011 from alumna Betty Fikes Copeland, who had lived in Indonesia in the 1960s. This collection consists of batik fabrics, katazome prints, and Thai temple rubbings. My exhibition included a sampling of all three art forms.

Originating in Indonesia, batik is a fabric that …

Art Exhibition Of Metals And Fabric, Heather Nguyen

Knowledge and Creativity Expo

Heather Nguyen is an undergraduate senior majoring in 3D media and Material Studies. They will be exhibiting two artworks made of metal and fabric.

Restoring Context: Interdisciplinary Approaches To Art Conservation And Registration Challenges In Rural Museums, Jade Karas '25

Senior Scholarly and Creative Symposium

A prevalent issue for museums in rural areas is a lack of reliable registration methods. This occurs for a number of reasons whether it be a lack of resources (human, financial, spacial, etc.) or the erosion of knowledge overtime due to cultural reliance on generational knowledge. Additionally, different registrars often develop new methods for inventory without leaving behind instructions, leading subsequent registrars to devise their own methods. These gaps in the registration process frequently result in “registration problems”, objects that don’t get properly inventoried and thus have little to no context for their origins. This thesis aims to fill in …

Forming Community Partnerships, Lori Foley

CHAR

In the event of a disaster, regardless of the type or scope, the first response is always local. For the institutions and organizations charged with safeguarding the nation’s cultural and historic resources – museums, historical societies, libraries, and municipal offices, to name just a few – building relationships with local first responders and emergency managers before disaster strikes is key to ensuring the safety of staff and collections. State emergency management agencies are also collaborating with their state cultural agencies to protect these valuable and vulnerable resources. The resulting emergency networks better position the local community and the state to …

Lessons Learned From Culture In Crisis; Or Protecting The Past To Save The Future, Laurie Rush

CHAR

At the midpoint of the second decade of the 21^st century, the world is experiencing deliberate destruction of cultural property at a scale not seen since the Second World War. Future protection and preservation of cultural heritage depends on learning from tragedy and applying these lessons as pro-actively as possible. First, we are discovering that no matter the threat, there are people who risk their lives to save artifacts and features of their culture, and the motives for this courage are retrospectively clear. For a community to survive a conflict or disaster as a corporate entity, elements of shared …

Keynote Address - When Violent Nonstate Actors Target Cultural Heritage Sites, Victor Asal

CHAR

Why would organizations attack or kill people at cultural heritage sites or destroy such sites? Using data from the Big Allied and Dangerous insurgent dataset that has data on 140 insurgent organizations from 1998-2012, and data from the Global Terrorism Database, this presentation examines the factors that make insurgent groups more likely to attack such sites or kill people at such sites. We look at the impact of organizational ideology, organizational structure and power as well as country level factors.

Mitigation, Response And Recovery, Richard Lord

CHAR

Abstract: Hurricane Harvey ravaged Texas and Louisiana nearly five years after Superstorm Sandy devastated the East Coast and caused 53 deaths, destroyed or severely damaged 100,000 Long Island homes, and left an estimated $42 billion in damages across New York State.

This session will provide an overview of the disaster relief and assistance programs available under the Stafford Act, when they are triggered, and how private non-profit and cultural institutions can plan for natural hazards and take full advantage of available aid. There will also be discussion of the NYS Hazard Mitigation Plan, the Community Risk and Resiliency Act, and …

Informing Responders Using Gis And Gps, Deidre Mccarthy

CHAR

Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in August 2005 and created the single largest disaster for cultural resources that the United States has witnessed since the inception of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966. Notably, the NHPA created the National Register of Historic Places, our nation’s catalog of important cultural resources. The NHPA also stipulates that any federal undertaking which may adversely affect National Register eligible resources be mitigated. For the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Katrina created the largest compliance project ever under Section 106 of the NHPA.

Although causing a great deal of damage, Katrina also …

Keynote Address: Climate Change: From Global To New York Scale, Christopher D. Thorncroft

CHAR

This talk is concerned with the science and impacts of climate change from global to New York scales. It will provide an assessment of how the climate has changed over the past Century based on a purely observational perspective. The scientific basis for anthroprogenic climate change will be explained and discussed including a description of the “greenhouse effect” and why it is important for life on this planet. We will briefly discuss global and local consequences of a warmer climate and what we need to be prepared for going forward in the coming decades.

Opening Keynote Address: Using Data To Understand Cultural Destruction, Brian I. Daniels

CHAR

Brian I. Daniels, Ph.D, Penn Cultural Heritage Center, University of Pennsylvania Museum.

Why is cultural heritage targeted in conflict? Under what circumstances? By whom? Today, due in part to the recent notorious instances of cultural destruction in the Middle East and North Africa, there is perhaps more attention among the broader scientific community than ever before about the phenomenon of cultural loss. At the same time, there are many significant data and analytical gaps. Little social science literature about cultural destruction exists and many critical questions—and avenues of research—are, as of yet, unstudied. A primary reason for this lack …

P-04 Cavan Burren 2015 Project, Rhonda Root, Robin Johnson, Ariel Solis, Abelardo Rivas

Celebration of Research and Creative Scholarship

The Cavan Burren is a plantation forest within the Marble Arch Caves UNESCO Global Geopark overlay along the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland border. The exposure of Cavan Burren’s "relict landscape" resulted from a 2012 partial clear fell. Our multidisciplinary team of researchers in architecture, technology, ecology, fine arts, and archaeology investigated domestic architecture reflected in three stone configurations: circular/semicircular sites, rectangular sites, and tomb structures. We also investigated human action on pedestal boulders (PBs), which had been modified by sculpting, splitting, and cutting away. Our first goal was to show human action on structures by using three-dimensional (3D) …

Upon Closer Examination, Holly Haynes

Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.