Conservation Assessment of Objects from the Center for Puppetry Arts' Puppet Collection

FAIN: PG-50417-08

Center for Puppetry Arts, Inc. (Atlanta, GA 30309-2819)
Alan Louis (Project Director: May 2007 to September 2009)

A condition survey of 250 puppets and related performing objects from around the world. From its collection the center has selected 25 puppets from Africa, 70 from Europe, and 155 from North and South America as representative of the full range of countries, time periods, and media. These items were used in various cultural contexts: rituals and religious functions, social commentary, cultural narratives, and childhood education.

Through this project, the Center for Puppetry Arts (CPA) will engage a conservator to conduct a detailed condition survey of 250 puppets and related performing objects from Africa, Europe, and the Americas, selected from the CPA's global museum collection, which contains 1,473 puppets from all over the world, as well as posters, publications, and audio/visual recordings. These objects have been prioritized for display in a new long-term exhibition of the CPA's permanent collection that it is currently planning, which will explore puppetry's diverse roles in the human experience across global history. Scholars and puppetry experts working with the CPA have deemed these objects to be critical to the exhibition's content, due to their historical, cultural, religious, sociopolitical, and/or artistic signifiance. Assessment of these objects' condition will assist the CPA's exhibition planning efforts by determining how to best stabilize and preserve these objects for public display.