The use gels and nanomaterials in the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage

On November 14^th  and 15^th  2024 the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina organized a two-day workshop on the topic: The use gels and nanomaterials in the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage: Theory and Applications. Nano-materials exhibit characteristics that are peculiar and different than those of bulk materials. This can result in enhanced chemical, electrical, magnetic and optical properties that are advantageous for numerous applications. Within this framework, Soft Matter and Nano Science has the appropriate background to innovate in the field of conservation treatments.

The workshop lecturer is Antonio Mirabile, a paper conservator and preventative conservation consultant based in Paris, France. In France he is accredited by French Ministry of Culture to conserve and restore the cultural heritage belonging to the Musées de France. As UNESCO expert he worked in various paper conservation projects in Yemen, Egypt, Mongolia, DPRK, Uzbekistan and Mauritania. Today he shares his professional activities between preventive conservation assignments, paper conservation treatments and scientific research in particular as partner of EU funded project NANORESTART, APACHE, GREENART and AURORA he is involved in the development of innovative methods in order to improve conservation treatments and in the organization of the dissemination activities. Beside he teaches, via short trainings and master classes, paper conservation and preventive conservation in various Universities. He is the author and co-author of about 80 articles and wrote two handbooks published by UNESCO. He is an active member of INCCA and ICOM.

The training at the Museum was organized within the GreenArt project, which was financed by the EU Horizon project. The goal of the project is education and promotion of new technologies in the conservation of cultural heritage. As part of the training, the EU project AURORA (Artwork Unique RecognitiOn and tRacking through chemicAl encoded data, miniaturized devices and blockchain alliance) was presented. The workshop was designed so that theoretical lectures were held in the morning, attended by students of the interdisciplinary study of Conservation and Restoration of the University of Sarajevo, and in the afternoon, 11 participants from different institutions (National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Museum of Wartime Childhood, Gazi Husrev-beg's Library, Archive RS, the RS Museum, as well as a student of the interdisciplinary study of Conservation and Restoration), who are already working on cultural heritage protection, had the opportunity to apply gels and nanomaterials on selected artifacts.