Conserving plastic works of art in museums
When art collections decay, museums must decide whether to continue to spend money to preserve thermodynamically unstable organic polymers or to record the image and chemical composition of these artefacts and remove them from the collection. To help museums deal with this dilemma, the POPART(opens in new window) (Strategy for the preservation of plastic artefacts in museum collections) project focused on four key research areas: analysis of plastics, condition monitoring in museum collections, assessment of polymer degradation and evaluation of conservation treatments. The POPART team identified different types of plastics to recommend appropriate treatment, storage strategies and risk assessment. To identify polymer artefacts in museums, it developed and tested tools and methodologies. Project members produced a sample plastic artefacts collection consisting of about 100 objects that correspond to the main polymer families. A reference survey was created and used by five museums to identify the condition and level of deterioration of objects in plastic collections. Partners analysed the degradation of four major synthetic polymers according to feedback from plastics conservators and scientists. To evaluate and observe changes and degradation during natural ageing in different environmental conditions, they elaborated 16 identical reference doll-like objects made of 11 different polymers normally found in modern museum collections. Team members also examined conservation methods for artefact cleaning and consolidation. Many cleaning procedures were evaluated and several consolidation processes using different products were also explored. POPART introduced an effective strategy to analyse, examine and conserve plastic works of art in museums. In doing so, the project has helped to raise awareness of plastic objects conservation in Europe and to preserve European cultural heritage assets for generations to come.
