Conservation Office

Tasked with providing high quality preservation and conservation services to public museums, during the year the Conservation Office devised and implemented conservation treatments for 837 cultural objects, including paintings, historical documents, textiles, photographs, metal objects, sculptures, organic objects, and archaeological finds. Its mission is to ensure that the museum collections are physically well preserved, and housed in the best possible conditions.

To raise conservation awareness among the public and establish a wider ethos of care for our cultural legacy, the office delivered 34 education and extension programmes for the general public and school students. These included behind-the-scenes laboratory visits and hands-on workshops organised for the School Culture Day Scheme and for International Museum Day. More than 783 participants, including 442 students from 19 school groups, attended the programmes, through which they were able to experience the pleasures and challenges of conservation work.

Students visiting a conservation laboratory to learn about conservation work on children's hats in the textile collections.

A total of 117 conservation volunteers were recruited through the 2014 Conservation Volunteers Programme. They contributed a total of 8 700 service hours in an array of conservation programmes including exhibit installation, collection preservation, workshop demonstrations, and practical conservation treatment. The office was awarded the Gold Award for Volunteer Service (Organisation) by Volunteer Movement, Social Welfare Department for the second consecutive year.

Conservation volunteers assist in surface cleaning of historic documents and the mending of tears.

The office organised the IIC 2014 Hong Kong Congress in collaboration with the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC). The Congress, with the theme An Unbroken History – Conserving East Asian Works of Art and Heritage, took place from September 22-26, 2014. Held for the first time in a sub-tropical region, the Congress was attended by a total of 500 delegates representing 32 countries around the world. Apart from academic and professional exchanges, numerous social events were held that enabled delegates to interact and network to the full. The Congress also brought to fruition the joint IIC and ICOM-CC declaration on environmental guidelines, a useful reference for the museum sector worldwide regarding the use of appropriate strategies for environmental control of museum collections.

A vigorous discussion on environmental guidelines for the museum sector took place between delegates at the IIC 2014 Hong Kong Congress.