Implementing Sustainable Barkcloth Collection Storage

FAIN: PF-271972-20

Peabody Essex Museum, Inc. (Salem, MA 01970-3726)
Eric Wolin (Project Director: January 2020 to August 2020)
Angela Segalla (Project Director: August 2020 to present)

The purchase and installation of storage equipment for the museum’s collection of Oceanic barkcloth, which would be rehoused in the Peabody’s Collection Center according to size, using a combination of flat files, a custom cabinet with horizontal screens, and cantilevered shelving.

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) requests a National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections Implementation Grant to rehouse a group of approximately 725 examples of Oceanic barkcloth using archival materials and customized storage housings. Rehousing these objects supports a primary goal of PEM’s strategic plan: to implement sustainable conservation strategies through improved storage conditions. In 2018 the museum opened a new Collection Center for the storage, care, and conservation of its art and library collections. The proposed project will support the purchase and installation of new storage furniture designed specifically for this important collection of barkcloth and its transportation from current storage on the museum’s campus to the Collection Center.