Destruição e proteção de acervos em museus

Abstract

Despite the discursive force of the object – organized by the artistic production or by the artifact –, in recent years, countless collections have been destroyed by acts of vandalism, war crimes, negligence, and accidents. The loss of these collections can be analyzed from the perspective of the potential loss of their studies but, above all, by understanding the impact of these losses in relation to the emptying of native communities’ voices; destruction of the memory of religious, racial, political, cultural, and territorial properties of certain groups or societies; and the disappearance of production systems, both concerning everyday and symbolic objects. Such damages are aggravated when we dimension the impact of the destruction of extinct communities’ collections, whose only memory remains alive in the cultural vestiges left in museums. In Brazil, the impact of fires on public museums amplifies these issues. This presentation intends to discuss the conceptual and technical issues surrounding the protection of collections in museums and is part of the research funded by CNPq: Protocols for the sustainable management of collections in museums: technical-scientific competences for the definition of standards, recommendations, and public safeguard policies.