Join us May 20th, at 10am for the OPC Quarterly Membership Meeting online via Cisco Webex.
During the portion following the business meeting, OPC leadership looks forward to engaging with membership on topics generated from the colloquium, Diversity in Collections Care: Many Voices held March 23rd - 24th, 2021.
Also, please consider joining us for "Tea Time" where OPC colleagues arrive 15 minutes early at 9:45 am for a social pre-gathering.
15 Minute Break (11:00 - 11:15)
Round Table Discussion (11:15 - 12pm)
Ohio Preservation Council organizational assessment and planning: Ensuring DEAI work is our everyday work
On March 23-24, 2021, the leadership of the Ohio Preservation Council attended Diversity in Collections Care: Many Voices, a two-day virtual colloquium presented by The Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (https://ccaha.org/about). Our goal of attending as a group was to begin the process of self-assessment to ensure that DEAI work becomes consciously, consistently, and thoughtfully integrated into the OPC mission of providing a network for preservation education and support within Ohio. As such, we invite membership to help guide us in this crucial work.
While the full colloquium was impactful, our group was particularly inspired by the active steps being taken at the Balboa Art Conservation Center (https://www.bacc.org/). With the permission of Leticia Gomez Franco, BACC Executive Director, please find a transcript of her presentation, “From Intention to Intentionality: Centering Equity, Inclusion and Representation in Cultural Preservation” available through the following link. During a round table discussion, facilitated by the Programming and Education co-chairs, we will use this document as a resource to inspire OPC membership to guide our organization from intentions to intentionality.
So that we all may have a shared reference point to begin this initial dialog, please prepare for the round table by reading this 9 page document, From Intention to Intentionality, authored by Leticia Gomez Franco.
Discussion topics/conversation starts may include the following:
· Though the Balboa Art Conservation Center serves museums and other collecting institutions, Leticia Gomez Franco draws a distinction between the center and the organizations it serves in order to free the non-profit from the biases baked into the collecting, curating, describing and making public cultural heritage material. Many of OPC’s members have some kind of professional relationship with museums, libraries, and archives that face the institutional biases Gomez Franco describes.
o How do you see OPC in relation to those institutions?
§ Consider our interest in sharing best practices or our role as a professional organization, for example.
o What in the presentation resonated with you as an OPC member?
· What action steps can OPC take locally to address the disturbing lack of diversity within the field of preservation? What specifically are the barriers to entering the field?
o Are there any current OPC practices that can be altered to better foster inclusion?
· How can OPC more effectively engage allied fields (public history, art history, English, art, etc.) in preservation activities – viewing preservation from a generalist perspective.
· Have you observed models of effective action (large or small) within or outside of our field that we can look to as examples?
Adjourn (12pm)
