Parts of Joseph Beuys’ installation art that came to our lab are covered with a layer of sticky liquid due to the migration of the PVC plasticizer and we decided to test the resistance of that layer to external factors. For this purpose, we conducted research using infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) at the Faculty of Chemistry READ MORE
Author: Heritage Science
Memorandum of Cooperation with The Wawel Royal Castle and NIKU
Recently, we have established a partnership with two institutions of international importance in the world of conservation and museology! The first of our partners is The Wawel Royal Castle, former residence of Polish kings. Our expertise in the field of risk analysis for cultural heritage will be used to develop a long-term preventive conservation strategy. READ MORE
What do we know about vulnerability of cultural heritage objects?
“Das grüne Museum”, organized by Deutsche Kongress, was a series of three meetings focused on preventive conservation, innovative building concepts for museums and energy issues, which took place in Dresden, Frankfurt and Munich. The conference gathered a large group of specialists in the field. Łukasz Bratasz presented a lecture entitled “What do we know about READ MORE
Energy efficiency in museums – we co-create guidelines at times of the energy crisis
Our group’s mission to support museums in their pursuit of more sustainable energy consumption without impairing conditions of exhibited and stored objects has become even more relevant today. The prospect of an energy crisis requires the development of a strategy in case of limitations in energy supplies or the need to save it. In Poland, READ MORE
Visiting Prof. Suiker at TU/e in Eindhoven
The project PRELUDIUM 19 experiments have advanced significantly since the successful tests of the measurement methodology. Moreover, the results obtained with the “wedge splitting method” gave rise to new research questions. Magda Soboń, who conducts the experiments, received a scholarship from the ERASMUS+ program (2021-1-PL01-KA131-HED-000005650) for a two-week training in the group of Prof. Dr. READ MORE
Meet our new trainee, Aurora Cairoli
She is a master student studying Cultural Heritage Conservation Science at the University of Milan. Aurora came to Poland thanks to the ERASMUS+ Traineeship grant and will be working for six months with our group. She joined us to write a master thesis related to the PVCare project and she has already started some DMA READ MORE
Challenges and opportunities for museums in carbon neutral future
Lukasz Bratasz was invited by the Getty Conservation Institute to talk about “Museums in Carbon Neutral Future”. The panel discussion led by Eric Breitung (The Met), Cecilia Winter (GCI) and Rachel Rivenc (The Getty Research Institute) focused on two topics: 1. The current energy crisis and risk of energy outage affecting operations of museums, and READ MORE
One step closer to the legacy of Tadeusz Kantor
In addition to the positive HR news we shared recently, the PVCare project is progressing just as well in terms of research. Our colleague Sergii is gradually processing the scans of the objects we have made at Cricoteka to create the interactive microscopic images that we need to analyze the crack pattern and also ready READ MORE
Characterizing fracture process in lime wood
We committed ourselves to measure the fracture toughness of lime wood in a wide range of relative humidities (RH). Thanks to those experiments, we will better answer the question of what threatens wooden sculptures in historic interiors where climate fluctuations reach such extremes. The samples were stabilized for weeks in sealed containers where the RH READ MORE
Sonia Bujok joins the PVCare project
We are pleased to announce that Sonia Bujok has joined our team and is starting work in the PVCare project as an Assistant. Sonia is interested in “green” materials and studying interactions in polymer materials by combining methods such as DMA, SAXS, DSC, ELS and NMR. Sonia graduated from the Cracow University of Technology in READ MORE