Posthuman Art Conservation Curriculum

Abstract

Art conservation as a field has not begun to consider the possibilities of dynamic relations and shared intensities between human and non-humans. In efforts to venture beyond Anthropocentric limits, this article asks, what if art conservation curriculum was reconsidered as a posthumanist indwelling accessed through speculative and affective narrative? In response, this article offers an art conservation curriculum that, grounded in affirmative ethics, appreciates human and nonhuman entities as entangled beings with multi-directional affects and shared trauma warranting healing circumstances. This article is inspired by one of its author’s attempts to transgress current art conservation curriculum based in large measure on a fire that he continues to think, move, and feel with as he lives this curricular event. Ultimately, we outline the facets of posthuman art conservation curriculum as an Aokian third space, teeming with fresh paths of possibility to move us beyond Anthropocentric priorities.