The CollectionCare project has entered its final months

The CollectionCare project has now lasted for over three years and is now in its final months. It has been three years and four months of interesting and fruitful cooperation between 18 partners with different backgrounds across Europe with the common goal of securing our cultural heritage by developing a new, innovative system for preventive conservation.

Over the past three years and four months the Royal Danish Academy has developed a computational model of canvas paintings that is able to simulate mechanical degradation of canvas paintings, such as cracks and bulges, due to parameters such as fluctuating temperature and humidity. The model has been validated by checking it against examples of real paintings and experimental results on painting materials. Thus, the model has been fed with and validated by information obtained from various experiments, such as the analyses described in previous blogposts..

The model is up and running and is incorporated in the new monitoring system developed by CollectionCare, to process and analyze the data obtained from the new CollectionCare-sensors, and thus provide the users with predictions and potential warnings concerning the artefacts that is monitored.

It is clear to us, that computational modelling of canvas paintings holds a great potential in the understanding of degradation and preservation of paintings, and we are convinced that this approach will gain great influence in the future. We will carry on our studies and will continue to work on further refinements of our model.

The CollectionCare will be rounded off at a final, internal meeting in June for all 18 partners. The final meeting will be held in Valencia, hosted by our leading partner the Universitat Politèchnica de València (UPV). At this meeting we will discuss and review the results from each work package and share our experiences.

Additionally, we will discuss the final version of a Green Paper, which is based on the knowledge obtained within the CollectionCare project. A green paper is a document that may be published by the European Commission to stimulate discussion on a given topic at EU level. Green papers may give rise to legislative developments that are then outlined in white papers. Thus, the Green Paper provides possibility of highlighting topics in the preservation of cultural heritage that needs further attention, and thus stimulating the discussion of preservation of our cultural heritage at a higher political level.

We hope that the CollectionCare system will be well received and that it will be an important tool in safeguarding our common cultural heritage, both during indoor and outdoor exhibits, storage, handling or transport.

Below is the latest promotional video containing small interview sessions with some of our partners.

The Royal Danish Academy project team:

Daniel Sang-Hoon Lee (modeling, validation, integration and protect design)

Cecil Krarup Andersen (project management and design, work-package leader, advisory board coordinator)

Mikkel Scharff (project management, experimental work, validation, imaging)  

Joonseok Pak (modeling, integration)

Nameseok Kim (model design, compilation of input parameters, modelling)

Astrid Valbjørn Nielsen (experimental work, project management, web manager)

Kristian Præstholm (experimental work, project management, web manager)

Special thanks to Henrietta Havsteen-Mikkelsen, Ida Høj Madsen, Tine Slotsgaard and Young Mee Rim