Reflections on the collaborative conservation of a basket from the Barona Cultural Center & Museum as part of the UCLA/Getty Graduate Program

Abstract

In this article the author details and reflects on her experience working with a Native cultural item and community stakeholders during graduate coursework at the UCLA/Getty Program. In the subject Conservation and Ethnography, collaboration with members of the Kumeyaay community informed the treatment of a southern California basket from the Barona Cultural Center & Museum. This subject provided a model for collaborative work that the author plans to draw upon in her career, with the experience reinforcing her understanding of her role as one of several caretakers an item has had and will have. Conservators should expect that many others, including Native peoples, makers, as well as cultural heritage professionals, will interact with collection items in diverse ways and that conservation decisions should facilitate this dynamic reality as part of an item’s continuing life history.