South Africa: Conservation workshops at the SAMA Conference

Two conservation workshops were given at the 81^st South African Museums Association National Conference (23 – 26 October 2017): one by Marjan Otter (Reinwardt Academy, Institute for Heritage Studies) and one by Alexandra van Kleef and Hanna Pennock (Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE).

Workshops
The workshop by Marjan Otter – ‘Your audience is your best marketing tool’ – was about museum marketing. What can participants learn from innovative Dutch museums which use social listening in their marketing campaigns? The workshop analysed a few Dutch museums in relation to the South African situation and also discussed the challenges and opportunities presented by cultural marketing in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious society.

‘The Art of Preventive Conservation’ workshop by Alexandra van Kleef and Hanna Pennock discussed the basics of preventive conservation, such as risk management, storage facilities and inventory control. A safe future for cultural heritage and preventing and addressing possible damage were the main topics of this session.

Context: inception mission
These workshops and the meetings afterwards are part of an inception mission The goal of this mission is to develop long-term collaboration between the Netherlands and South Africa on the topic of the conservation and management of museum collections. This is a follow-up to the report ‘Shared Heritage in Museums in South Africa: Opportunities for Collaboration’ and the visit of a museum delegation from South Africa to the Netherlands in February 2017, organised by the Rijksmuseum, the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) and DutchCulture.