Let There Be Light

Vincent Beltran: When you're thinking about conservation, there’s only so much time that you have. And as a result, you really have to think holistically about the conservation of the collection. It’s a lot more sustainable to think about trying to prevent the damage from happening upfront than thinking about treating every single object that has damage occurring to it.

The instrument that we use to assess the sensitivity of an object is called a microfading tester. What it does is it shines an extremely intense and focused beam of light on an object, which is going to induce color change. But at the same time, we monitor that color change using a spectrophotometer. And having this information gives you an opportunity to manage how you light that object during exhibition at the first museum, then at the second museum, and the third museum. Or, maybe that object is too sensitive, and you have to not exhibit it at all those places.