Recordings of past events are available on each event’s page.
Upcoming
Book launch and panel discussion: Object-Event-Performance: Art, Materiality, and Continuity Since the 1960s
February 22, 2023
Join editor Hanna B. Hölling along with contributors to the new volume for a wide-ranging panel discussion.
Artists engaged with performance discuss the afterlives and legacies of their work, even considering performance’s potential to serve as a form of conservation itself.
Past
Anna Schäffler: The Art of Preservation
December 21, 2022
Dr. Anna Schäffler discussed her research on cooperative forms of preservation in connection with the work of German conceptual artist Anna Oppermann.
Second annual colloquium – Performance Conservation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
September 30, 2022
This colloquium collected a diverse range of perspectives on the conservation of performance from art history, performance studies, artistic practice, anthropology, and beyond.
All four team members presented at this conference, which took place within the frame of the exhibition “BANG BANG: translocal hi:stories of performance art” at the Museum Tinguely.
Brandie Macdonald, Senior Director of Decolonizing Initiatives at the Museum of Us, located on Kumeyaay Nation territory in San Diego, California, discussed the preservation and transmission of living heritage in the museum context.
College Art Association Annual Conference: Conserving Performance, Performing Conservation
March 3, 2022
Four talks at the CAA panel we chaired explored different approaches to the conservation of ephemeral art.
Can Performance (Art) Be Conserved? Claire Bishop in Conversation
September 29, 2021
What does it mean to conserve performance art, to extend its lifespan into the future? Art historian and critic Claire Bishop discussed these and related questions with the PCMK team.
Living Materials: Ethics and Principles for Embodied Stewardship. A Conversation Between Cori Olinghouse and Megan Metcalf
June 10, 2021
This conversation between artist and archivist Cori Olinghouse and art historian Megan Metcalf examined embodied conservation skills, which are essential for the preservation of performance and related mediums yet remain mostly invisible and under-theorized in visual art.
This online event was the first event in a series of annual colloquia on the topic of the conservability of performance art and performance-based works. Conservators, scholars, curators, and artists contest the common-sense understanding of performance as a non-conservable form and ask questions concerning how, and to what extent, performance art and performance-based works can be conserved.
Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge 