Challenges
What caused the damages? When did it happen?
Could the barkcloth have been damaged through negligence, insufficient care and attention? Or could it have been a result of usage in the past?
As museums do not always know what happened to an object before it arrived on its premises, identifying the causes of damage can be difficult. This is just one of the many challenges in conserving ethnographic artefacts.
Conservators try to avoid over-conserving an artefact by intervening as little as possible, often doing just enough to stabilise the artefact. This would mean not altering too much of the original structure, and even resisting the temptation to “beautify” or “correct ” the artefact.
