The beetle in the collection: ecologies of care in museum conservation

This talk will explore the development of modern museum conservation that became central to thinking museums as permanent institutions which keep collections safe from physical degradation.

Several industrially manufactured chemical products saw the light of day in the first decades of the 20th century and were hailed as effective remedies against insect attacks in the growing museum collections. The use of toxic chemical pesticides was widespread in museums for a long time and still to this day chemical contaminants affect many routine tasks in museums worldwide.

This talk will introduce an ecological framework to discuss practices of care in the more-than-human museum where objects are expected to endure for an indefinite future.

Chair: Jennie Morgan, University of Stirling

Torgeir Rinke Bangstad is associate professor in Cultural Studies at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen where he teaches museum studies, material culture and a new interdisciplinary course in heritage studies.

Bangstad’s research interests include museums, critical heritage studies and the history of museum conservation. Bangstad was editor of Heritage Ecologies together with Þóra Pétursdóttir and has written several articles on the use of toxic chemical pesticides in object conservation. He is project leader of a research project called the Nature of Museums that investigates the consequences of the modern nature/culture-divide in the museum world.