Helping Puerto Rican Heritage (HPRH) is organized voluntarily by Marc Williams, American Institute for Conservation (AIC) Fellow, based on the east coast of the US mainland, and Cesar Pineiro, AIC PA, based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We have been working together for more than 30 years on various initiatives in conservation training and collections preservation. For most of that time, we have realized that conservation training and knowledge in Puerto Rico has lagged behind much of the rest of the world, and have established Helping Puerto Rican Heritage as an initiative to begin to remedy this.
Registration in Helping Puerto Rican Heritage is open to all graduates of recognized graduate degree conservation programs, as well as AIC Professional Associates and Fellows or equivalent international professional designations. Due to space constraints, only 30 participants can be accommodated. Our efforts will be focused in two general directions, educational opportunities in conservation in Puerto Rico, and offering advice on collections preservation and care to museums and historic sites. Please see the program below for more information on these specifics. Registration is first-come, first-served. Once the project is filled, openings will be available only through cancellations. We will keep a waiting list in chronological order. We will hold open 5 of the 30 slots for students. Priority will be given to graduate students in a recognized program, followed by pre-graduate (post BA/S) interns. If spaces still remain, undergraduates will be considered. We want to have a wide range of specialties and experiences represented. Our hope is that this will not all be tedious "work", but will also provide opportunities to relax, explore, and forge new connections and friendships. Monday, February 4 San Juan National Historic Site 9:00 - 9:30 Coffee Meet and Greet 9:30 - 10:00 Welcome and Introductions of participants 10:00 - 12:00 Tour of San Juan NHS 12:00 - 12:30 Light lunch 12:30 - 2:00 Visit and tours, San Cristobal Archives and Cannon Conservation Project 2:00 Informal team building - explore Old San Juan or other activities Tuesday, February 5 University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, San Juan 9:00 - 10:30 Visit Material Characterization Center 10:30 - 12:00 Visit Professor Fachini's Physics and Analytical Laboratory 12:00 - 12:30 Light lunch 12:30 - 2:00 Question and answer session with students on the field of conservation and educational opportunities. We are hoping to have one graduate of each of the major programs willing to be on the panel. 2:00 Informal team building - explore Old San Juan or other activities Wednesday, February 6 Field Trip to Ponce 9:00 - 10:30 Transportation to Ponce 10-30 - 1:00 Explore Ponce, lunch 1:00 - 3:00 Visit Museo de Arte de Ponce, including the Conservation Lab 3:00 - 5:00 Visit Hacienda Buena Vista, historic coffee plantation c. 1848 5:00 - 7:00 Return to San Juan 7:00 - 9:00 Group dinner at Restaurante Raices, authentic Puerto Rican cuisine. Thursday, February 7 Seminar at Fundación Luis Muñoz Marín for staff of cultural property institutions 9:00 - 12:00 Presentations on grant funding for collections care, capacity building, planning, and other aspects of collections stewardship, as well as emergency preparedness and disaster response for cultural heritage organizations. We hope this will be by staff of IMLS's Museums for America program and NEH's Preservation Assistance Grants program. However, since the US does not have an approved Federal budget (we are on a temporary budget until December), they can not make any commitments until that happens. So, perhaps we, the HPRH participants, will need to do the presentations. 12:00 - 1:00 Lunch 1:00 - 5:00 Questions on collections preservation and care by museum staff attendees answered by HPRH participant conservators. If a few conservators wish to make short presentations on basic preservation and care in their specialties, this would be possible as well. 5:00 - 6:00 Reception for conservators and presenters at Fundación Luis Muñoz Marín Friday, February 8 Hands-on Angels-like project at Casa Blanca 9:00 - 5:00 Built in 1521, Casa Blanca was the first stone house and fortification in Old San Juan, overlooking the San Juan Bay. It was built as the residence for Juan Ponce de Leon and his family, although he died before ever having the chance to live there. Today, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture has turned Casa Blanca into an historic house museum depicting life as it was back in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Due to chronic budget deficits, under-funding, and under-staffing, routine housekeeping of the collections has been neglected. We will be assisting in remedying this. The activities we will be involved in will depend upon the expertise of the participating conservators and the specific needs of individual objects. For further information and an application, please email Marc at: [email protected] ****** Unsubscribe by sending a message to [email protected] Searchable archives: http://cool.conservation-us.org/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/
