Textiles Working Group
Triennial Programme 2008-2011

Newsletter
The textile working group plans to publish two newsletters a year. The newsletter enables members to inform their colleagues about their research, special projects, and recent developments in conservation. We also wish to give colleagues a voice to describe the situation concerning textile conservation in their home country. Our aim is to present, country by country, an overview of the textile conservation scene in private studios, conservation laboratories in museums and institutions, and training programs worldwide. Members are encouraged to inform us about the situation in their country.

Interim meeting
The textile working group aims to co-organise an interdisciplinary interim meeting together with the working groups for Leather and Related Materials; Wood, Furniture, and Lacquer; Murals, Stone, and Rock Art; and Sculpture, Polychromy and Architectural Decoration. The theme will be Multidisciplinary Conservation: a holistic view for historic interiors. The co-ordinators of these five working groups have launched the ‘call for papers’ for the interim meeting, which will take place in Rome in March 2010.

Research and conservation
Colleagues are encouraged to continue carrying out scientific research that contributes to the treatment of textiles of all kinds. We are particularly interested in conservation projects focusing on the needs of non-Western countries and of locations with tropical or extreme climatic conditions. We are also interested in learning more about local, indigenous approaches to preserving textiles methods that are traditional, low cost, use locally available materials and pay particular attention to their impact on the environment. We would also like to hear more about our member’s work in preventive conservation in regard to risk assessment, as well as decision making as related to object type and considerations of the maker and owning institution. In other words: we are sure there are many interesting aspects in textile conservation and research to explore and discuss.

ICOM-CC Triennial Conference 2011
The next triennial conference will take place in Lisbon. We would like to encourage colleagues to contribute papers concerning issues related to Portugal and its rich history. This includes the link with Africa and Brazil and the world of Indo-Portuguese textiles. In this way, different continents and textiles traditions may be included. We would also like to stimulate papers that describe how technical problems in textile conservation treatment, display or storage were solved. It is always very useful to see and hear about the possible solutions for challenging problems.

Assistant co-ordinators
Jan Vuori, senior textile conservator at the Canadian Conservation Institute, formerly a co-editor of the Newsletter of the textile working group, will now serve as an assistant co-ordinator. She will help with reading and ranking the abstracts and the articles for the pre prints for the next triennial meeting. Pia Christensson, textile conservator in Helsingborg, Denmark and co-editor of the Newsletter, will continue collecting articles and news from the textile conservation field to publish and inform our members. She will be assisted by Rebecca Rushfield, textile conservator in New York, and Namrata Dalela, textile conservator in India. We are very happy to have an active member now in Asia and hope this will give us the opportunity to communicate more about textile conservation in the East. Christine Müller-Radloff, a textile conservator in Leipzig, Germany, will continue to maintain the membership list and Foekje Boersma, a conservator in The Hague, The Netherlands, will be working with the website.