Editorial

Volume . presents a mix of conservation papers and viewpoints from an Australian professional context. What draws the papers together is their focus on living cultural collections and heritage that connects people and communities and not only the static objects that we are commonly accustomed to in institutionalised contexts. Such a trend is not new in museology. The representation of living heritage, object biographies and knowledge acquisition in the broadest sense have long been in the public domain and the topic of exhibitions. While in conservation, the theme was explored at the ICOM CC th Triennial Conference Building Strong Culture through Conservation in Melbourne in  and the Hamilton Kerr Institute conference on Migrants: art, artists, materials and ideas crossing borders in . Essentially, the papers and conferences are all exploring identity, how it is constructed, acknowledged and (mis)represented which naturally has implications for how we conserve objects. The four papers in volume . are concerned with how to engage with living heritage systems and their fluid dynamics. It is encouraging that submissions to the AICCM Bulletin are focussing and exploring these themes. The paper ‘What is the Object? Identifying and describing time-based artworks’ by Carolyn Murphy, Asti Sherring and Lisa Catt from the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) examines the challenges of cataloguing time based artworks in an institutionalised context. The AGNSW having collected such works since the s, discusses how the use of standard terminologies in their earlier database records may have misrepresented or not captured the artworks defining properties and iterative processes. Their goal therefore has been to re-evaluate their documentation and decision-making processes through a focussed project and a number of case studies in their collection. Carolyn Murphy and Analiese Treacy’s paper ‘Drawings you can walk on—Mike Parr and the th Biennale of Sydney ’ likewise explores the challenges of iterative works of art and ones that are ‘intentionally unstable (both physically and conceptually)’. The title itself challenges conservation practice from a conventional point of view but champions the experience and the living artists agency. The authors discuss how to best manage the various ideologies while also using the familiar modes of conservation documentation in the process. While Lisa Nolan’s paper on ‘Bark paintings conservation: Eucalyptus tetrodonta properties, bark harvesting and various mounting systems in the Northern Territory indigenous bark paintings’ provides a historical account of bark painting mounting systems and the way attitudes have evolved and changed. Informed through oral history accounts, the paper aims to understand the ‘full life cycle of bark supports from when they are first made, to their display and collections trajectory in the cultural institution context’. Working with Injalak Arts, the author has documented the preparation of the barks to deepen our professional knowledge and decision making for their preservation at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. The paper highlights a desire to engage and represent the knowledge of Injalak Arts. Likewise Bronwyn Dunn’s paper ‘Moving a collection: Issues in the documentation, transport and storage of the Freemasons Victoria Collection’ presents an engaged account with the Freemasons and preservation strategies that represent the values of a collection that are often ‘shrouded in secrecy and misunderstanding (rightly or wrongly)’. It is a pleasure to present these four papers in the AICCM Bulletin and the Editorial Committee thank the authors for their contributions and revisions.