Introducing a Risk-, Value- and Collection Lifetime-Based Lighting Policy at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 2001, the conservation department at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, implemented a risk-based lighting policy for highly light-sensitive collection objects that has been influential across the museum sector and informed the rotation of these objects across its permanent galleries and touring exhibitions. As the V&A grows into a family of museums – opening three new sites between 2023 and 2025 – and with ambitious exhibition and display programmes, the challenge facing the museum is to continue to balance the care of collections, increase access to them, and keep resource requirements sustainable. To address this challenge, the conservation department developed a new risk- and value-based policy to manage highly light-sensitive collections on display in its permanent galleries. This policy builds on the earlier risk-based approach to lighting policies and introduces value assessment, microfadometry and collection lifetimes as tools for optimal collections management to the wider organisation.