PRIMROSE short–listed for Icon award
01 October 2010
An innovative project to improve care of the Southwest’s photographic history has been shortlisted for a prestigious award from Icon, the Institute of Conservation.
The project
PRIMROSE - Photographic Records in Museums: Re-Organisation, Storage and Environment, trained 92 staff and volunteers from 55 museums in the Southwest. They learnt about different photographic processes, conditions that cause damage and how to safely sort, identify, clean and re-house their collections. Each museum received guidelines, factsheets and archival quality supplies to allow them to start implementation immediately.
Making it possible
The training was organised by RAMM’s Conservation Development Officer, Helena Jaeschke, as part of her work supporting museums in Devon and the surrounding areas. It was funded by Renaissance Southwest, part of the central government’s groundbreaking programme to transform regional museums.
Making an impact
Most of the 544 museums in the Southwest have valuable collections of photographs and it will significantly improve the care of this important historical record.
Next steps
The PRIMROSE project was selected from a wide range of high quality submissions. The short-listed projects will be presented to the Awards Judges’ Panel in October 2010 and the Awards presented at a ceremony at the Royal Institution, London on 1 December 2010.
2010 Conservation Awards – ‘Valuing Excellence’
The Conservation Awards celebrate the highest standards of conservation skills, innovation and research, collections care and digital preservation within the arts and heritage industry in the UK. The Awards, which were launched in 1991, are supported by Icon and sponsored by The Pilgrim Trust, the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), and the Anna Plowden Trust. Since 2005, the Awards have also been generously supported by Sir Paul McCartney. Icon is particularly grateful for this help, which has enabled the Awards to continue to raise the profile of conservation within the wider heritage sector.
