Conservation-restoration continues to evolve in the 21st century, adding a more diverse and unique artistic heritage to work with. Recent typologies and materials have raised new challenges for the profession, resulting in a paradigm shift that transversally affects the entire sector. In response to this, new working methodologies are being developed based on scientific research and technological advancements.

As a result of globalization, the need for sustainability, new materials, special collections and heritage sites, among other reasons, the different specializations and interdisciplinary works are evolving and are broadening traditional training and research approaches.

The growing maturity of the profession, guided by its code of ethics, must allow conservators-restorers to adapt themselves to this new paradigm and be capable of guaranteeing the safeguarding of this entire heritage. Therefore, it is essential to showcase the work of many professionals involved in particular specializations that are neither part of traditional academia nor have a significant presence in current training programs.

The XVII Technical Meeting is addressed both to all conservators-restorers and to those working on related fields, who are interested in particular and unique specializations, either by their materials or their typologies; specializations that have not usually found enough exposure through the regular outlets.

What are some of the new challenges that the field faces?

• New or little-known materials treatment: plastics paradigm.
• Collections and singular heritage goods: contemporary and multimedia art, photographic and audiovisual records, scientific-technical materials, prefabricated cardboard architecture, ethnological material, goldsmithing, stained glass, ephemeral objects on paper, clothing and fashion materials, furniture and industrial design, to name just a few.
• Promoting more efficient and sustainable conservation-restoration: Consolidation of the preventive conservation, and the new concept of preserving the symbolic value included in the Contemporary Restoration Theory of 2004, that introduces the need of creating new management programs.
• Preserving and maintaining objects in motion or in use, from kinetic art and religious heritage to scientific and industrial heritage.
• Managing hazardous materials contained in 20th-century collections, such as asbestos, lead or arsenic.
• Designing emergency plans for unique collections.

The XVII Technical Meeting is an opportunity for all conservation-restoration professionals, regardless of their specialization, to showcase their research, innovation and intervention works. A platform to share experiences, challenges, and give visibility to a transversal and plural reality, and to encourage a critical debate with a global strategy in order to get our field be recognized worldwide. CRAC believes that this is a great chance to disseminate new working tendencies and academic research

The meeting is divided into three blocks:

1. Issues and experiences in conservation-restoration interventions.
2. Collections and Artistic Heritage Goods Management: a versatile profile.
3. Conservation of new materials: challenges and research.

• September 30, 2022: Proposals submission deadline.
• November 20, 2022: Proposals selected and notification to the authors.
• February 15, 2023: Manuscripts deadline.
• February – May 2023: Scientific Committee manuscripts readings