Today, 27 January, marks the International Conservator-Restorer Day, a professional who restores and conserves protected cultural assets, whether movable or integrated, preserving their historical and cultural value.
Cultural heritage influences the identity and daily life of peoples, encompassing both the tangible and intangible, natural, and digital aspects. It surrounds them in villages, towns, and cities, in natural landscapes, monuments, museums, palaces, and archaeological sites…
It is present not only in literature, art and the objects on display in museums, but also in the techniques learned from ancestors, traditional crafts, music, theatre, the ambiance and spirit of places, gastronomy and cinema.
The celebration of International Conservator-Restorer Day is, therefore, an opportunity to sensitise the population, especially the younger generations, to the valuable outcomes that conservation and restoration can bring to cultural heritage and society.
The respect for history and the values present in the interventions stand out, as well as the artists and crafts, which guarantee the integrity of the European material testimony and the authenticity of cultural heritage, that are crucial for the process of individual and collective identification.
The conserver-restorer is a highly qualified professional who studies interdisciplinary subjects, from chemistry to biology, through art history, archaeology and museology. This professional is responsible for tasks of high complexity and responsibility and often works in multidisciplinary networks.
At the Soares dos Reis National Museum, continuous work is carried out in the areas of conservation and restauration, within the context of managing and monitoring the different collections.
The team of conservators and restorers also takes part in research projects with the aim of contributing to new studies on conservation and restoration techniques and procedures.