Seminar: "From Gremlins to Goblins – The Science Behind Preserving Cinema Collections"

DiSAT is glad to invite you to the seminar "From Gremlins to Goblins – The Science Behind Preserving Cinema Collections" scheduled on Wednesday the 3rd of June, in the Sala Riunioni of the PoliTO Alessandria Campus.
The seminar will be held by prof. Rebecca Ploeger, SUNY Buffalo University (US).

Cinema and the craft of film making have a wide reaching and often inter-cultural audience. A movie is presented to us on a screen, and for a moment in time, we connect with the characters and become part of their world. In about two hours we enjoy an imaginative collaboration of many people. We can also enjoy cinema collections – where movie-making objects, props, and costumes allow us to be one-step closer to the action and we can celebrate the creative minds and talents of everyone behind the scenes. Caring for these collections can be a challenge for their care-takers – often the service life of a movie prop or costume is only for the duration of creating the film, where materials’ selections are based on filming needs, meaning longevity, chemical stability, and preservation are not use-based or material considerations. This talk will discuss some of these challenges and outcomes through two case-studies of props that are actively changing with age.

Rebecca Ploeger is an Associate Professor of Conservation Science in the Garman Art Conservation Department at Buffalo State College. Dr. Ploeger’s main interests are in the design, characterization, and stability of synthetic and polymeric materials used by artists and conservators. She is one of the founder of the Consolidating Adhesive Project, the collaborative project, which has brought together internationally recognized cultural institutions and universities in Italy, France, the Netherlands, and the USA. She is also branching out in the local area, and working with Buffalo institutions, as well as some in Toronto, Canada.
Rebecca teaches the organic and polymer section of our conservation science curriculum and a course in preventive conservation. In addition to the department, she has helped with the Shad Valley International Program (Queen’s University campus, Kingston Canada) in some capacity for the past 10 years, as a faculty member, guest lecturer, or program assistant.Before moving to Buffalo, she was a Charles E. Culpeper Advanced Training in Conservation Science fellow at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, in the Scientific Research Department, and collaborated as a guest researcher with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD. Rebecca has a Master’s degree in Engineering Chemistry from Queen’s University, Canada, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences from the University of Turin, Italy, both specializing in polymer materials in cultural heritage. She was also a Lagrange Project post-doctoral fellowship recipient for the study of complex systems from the ISI Foundation (Regione Piemonte). During her doctorate and post-doctorate studies in Italy, she collaborated with a number of conservators of modern and contemporary materials in Turin and Milan, along with museums in Turin and the Piedmont region.

Due to limited seating in the meeting room at the Alessandria Campus, the seminar will also be available online at the following link

We look forward to seeing many of you there

Dafne Cimino