Protecting Public Art Collections: Emergency Preparedness Through Remote Risk Assessment and Mapping

FAIN: PR-284416-22

Midwest Art Conservation Center, Inc. (Minneapolis, MN 55404-3506)
Colin D. Turner (Project Director: May 2021 to present)

A planning project to develop a risk assessment matrix for public art collections using a subset of data from the Washington State Arts Commission’s public art collection.

The Midwest Art Conservation Center (MACC), in partnership with the Washington State Arts Commission (ArtsWA), will support emergency preparedness in public art collections through the development of tools for remote risk assessment, mapping, and emergency plans. This phase of the project will survey emergency preparedness activities and needs for public art collections in the United States, develop a reproducible logical framework for assessing risk remotely, and use that framework to evaluate data from a subset of the ArtsWA collection. This planning phase will conclude with a draft emergency planning document for ArtsWA, a review of the success of the framework, and a roadmap for future modifications and scaling. This project will use existing and accessible technology to fill a void in emergency planning for cultural heritage; it will create a resource that can be adapted and used freely by public art collections nationwide.