Tools to Document and Disseminate the Conservation of Urban Art

the Experience of the CAPuS Project

Authors

  • Chiara Ricci Centro Conservazione Restauro “La Venaria Reale”, Via XX Settembre 18, 10078 Venaria Reale, Italy
  • Paola Croveri Centro Conservazione Restauro “La Venaria Reale”, Via XX Settembre 18, 10078 Venaria Reale, Italy
  • Arianna Scarcella Centro Conservazione Restauro “La Venaria Reale”, Via XX Settembre 18, 10078 Venaria Reale, Italy
  • Sagita Mirjam Sunara Conservation-Restoration Department, University of Split – Arts Academy, Fausta Vrančića 17a, 21000 Split, Croatia
  • Toni Tabak Digitize Studio DITZ, Mostarska ul. 104, 21000 Split, Croatia
  • Moira Bertasa Department of Chemistry, University of Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 7, 10125 Torino, Italy
  • Dominique Scalarone University of Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 7, 10125 Torino, Italy

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48619/indigo.v0i0.709

Keywords:

Conservation of Art in Public Spaces, digital repository, glossary, public art, street art, urban art

Abstract

The Conservation of Art in Public Spaces project (CAPuS), realised under the European Programme Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliances, aimed to develop a shared approach to the conservation of artworks in public spaces. The project involved 17 partners from 5 European countries, most of which focused on street art and contemporary murals. The final goal was the dissemination of knowledge to all stakeholders involved and the implementation of e-learning and training modules for conservation students and professionals. In addition to sharing best practices, the CAPuS partnership recognised the need to set a common and unambiguous vocabulary referring to the most relevant issues in the study of graffiti and street art for conservation purposes, such as style, execution technique, deterioration processes and conservation treatments. This encouraged the creation of a multilingual glossary, divided into two sections entitled “Street Art & Graffiti” and “Conservation”, with each definition accompanied by an illustrative picture. In addition to that, an open-source database, the CAPuS Digital Repository, was created to archive, organise and disseminate the wide range of information and documentation that was collected and produced about the artworks studied within the project (materials and artistic techniques, artworks’ socio-cultural context, photographic documentation, interviews with artists, condition reports etc.). Both the CAPuS Multilingual Illustrated Glossary and the CAPuS Digital Repository can support teaching and learning activities. They may also be of great help for future conservation interventions on the examined artworks and may serve as a starting point for the study and treatment of other public works of art.

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Author Biographies

Chiara Ricci, Centro Conservazione Restauro “La Venaria Reale”, Via XX Settembre 18, 10078 Venaria Reale, Italy

Chiara Ricci is a conservation scientist at the Centre for Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage “La Venaria Reale” (CCR). She currently also works as a laboratory technician at the University of Turin. She received a Master’s degree in Science for Cultural Heritage in 2012 and Material Science for Cultural Heritage in 2016. She earned a PhD in Protection of Cultural Heritage in collaboration with the University of Vigo, Spain. After graduation, she had internship experiences at the Getty Conservation Institute (Los Angeles, USA) and the Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España (Madrid, Spain). She carries out scientific investigations on several heritage materials with a multi-analytical approach. In recent years, she has been focusing on the issues of graffiti removal from ornamental stones and street art conservation, participating in the European project CAPuS. Her research output can be found at https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5358-1932.

Paola Croveri, Centro Conservazione Restauro “La Venaria Reale”, Via XX Settembre 18, 10078 Venaria Reale, Italy

Paola Croveri is a project manager at Centro Conservazione e Restauro “La Venaria Reale” (CCR) and a research technician at the Chemistry Department of the University of Torino. She received her Master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Torino (Italy) in 1997 and her PhD degree in Science for Conservation of Cultural Heritage in 2004 from the University of Florence. Her main expertise concerns the conservation of natural and artificial stone (mortar, mural paintings). Her research focuses on porous building materials and paintings, their deterioration phenomena, the products and the methodologies for their consolidation and protection. Since 2007, she has been coordinating within CCR, national and international Scientific research projects and international cooperation projects, among them the Erasmus+ CAPuS project with a focus on public art studies and conservation.

Sagita Mirjam Sunara, Conservation-Restoration Department, University of Split – Arts Academy, Fausta Vrančića 17a, 21000 Split, Croatia

Sagita Mirjam Sunara is an associate professor at the Conservation Department of the Arts Academy, University of Split. She teaches preventive conservation, conservation documentation, history of conservation, and introduction to conservation of easel paintings and polychrome wood. She also teaches a course on artist interviews. She has a diploma in conservation from the University of Split and a PhD in art history (heritage preservation) from the University of Zagreb. In recent years her research has been focused on outdoor sculpture in general, and the Sisak Steelworks Sculpture Park in particular. She managed the CAPuS project on behalf of the University of Split, and coordinated the activities of the Croatian research group. One of her main project outputs was the CAPuS Digital Repository. Her publications can be accessed here: https://umas.academia.edu/SagitaMirjamSunara.

Toni Tabak, Digitize Studio DITZ, Mostarska ul. 104, 21000 Split, Croatia

Toni Tabak is an engineer and entrepreneur with more than twelve years of experience in software development. He started his career in 2010 as a freelance developer working on numerous projects involving 3D rendering pharm, governmental medical solutions, pipeline inspection/reparation software and hardware, tourism booking engine and travel safety-centric solutions. Since 2019, he has been developing online learning platforms for prestigious colleges like Harward business school. In 2022 he decided it was time to focus entirely on resolving some crucial questions like liberalisation, freedom, and equality. He started working on zero knowledge L2 scaling solutions for the Ethereum decentralised financial system. He designed and developed the CAPuS digital repository as a searchable database application containing all research and resources produced during the project.

Moira Bertasa, Department of Chemistry, University of Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 7, 10125 Torino, Italy

Moira Bertasa is a heritage scientist and a senior research fellow within the Heritage Science Group of the Italian National Institute of Optics (INO-CNR). She gained her PhD in Chemicals and Materials Science at the University of Turin in 2017. Her journey has been defined by a broad range of national and international experiences within heritage science. During her first post-doc, she was involved in the CAPuS project, following the scientific research surrounding the painting materials and their application in street art. Her main research interests surround assessing the effectiveness and technological potentiality of several cleaning methodologies, especially polymer gels and lasers, by a multi-analytical approach. Her research output can be found on her ORCID webpage: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6014-495X.

Dominique Scalarone, University of Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 7, 10125 Torino, Italy

Dominique Scalarone is an associate professor at the Chemistry Department of the University of Torino, where she gives lectures in Chemistry and the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage curricula. She received her Master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Torino (Italy) in 1998 and 2001, respectively. Her research interests concern the chemical characterisation of organic artistic materials, the study of their degradation and the development of polymeric materials and protocols for conserving and protecting cultural heritage assets. Since 2018, she has been working on the conservation of street art, first as coordinator of the European project CAPuS, and now as a partner of the national project SuperStAr. Her research output can be found at https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0799-1690.

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Published

2023-05-10

How to Cite

Ricci, C., Croveri, P., Scarcella, A., Sunara, S. M., Tabak, T., Bertasa, M., & Scalarone, D. (2023). Tools to Document and Disseminate the Conservation of Urban Art: the Experience of the CAPuS Project. GoINDIGO, 188–202. https://doi.org/10.48619/indigo.v0i0.709

Issue

2022: document | archive | disseminate graffiti-scapes

Section

Articles