Associate Professor Robyn Sloggett
Director, Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation
- Telephone:
- (+61 3) 8344 6455
- Email:
- rjslog@unimelb.edu.au
- Fax:
- (+61 3) 8344 0329
- Location:
- Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation
Ian Potter Art Conservation Centre
The University of Melbourne VIC 3010
Academic profile (click on the link for more information)
Biography
Robyn Sloggett is Director of the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation (CCMC). She has qualifications in Art History, Philosophy and Cultural Materials Conservation. As Director of the CCMC she manages the diverse conservation, teaching and research programs of the Centre. These programs include responsibility for the conservation of the cultural collections of the University of Melbourne (with over 32 separate collections owned or managed by the University) and the provision of a large program for external clients with specialist expertise in painting, frame, paper, objects and textiles conservation. The CCMC also delivers the only comprehensive post-graduate conservation professional programme in the Australasia-Pacific region, as well as courses in Art Authentication and Photographic Preservation.
Her contribution to research and teaching has developed in both an academic and professional framework. In her previous role as Deputy Director and Grimwade Chief Conservator in the Ian Potter Museum of Art she managed both Conservation and Collections Management, developing research programs which linked the scientific analysis of art and archival material (in partnership with researchers in the Faculty of Science) with art historical analysis (in partnership with researchers in the Faculty of Arts) and collection management (in partnership with staff in the Ian Potter Museum of Art and Information Services). These collaborations resulted in over 23 competitive research grants and 17 successful ARC projects.
Robyn is currently a member of the University’s Cultural Collections Committee; founded and is Production Manager for the Melbourne Journal of Technical Studies in Art; is a member of the Collections Committee of the Library Board, State Library of Victoria; and is currently Chair of the Indemnification Committee Arts Victoria. In the past she has been a member of a number of editorial boards (including Museums National Museum Australia Magazine and Open Museum Journal) and a number of organising committees (including the IIC’s 50th Congress Tradition and Innovation). She was a Board Member of the Ian Potter Museum of Art from 2000 to 2005, a Foundation Director of AusHeritage, a member of the Federal Government’s Conservation and Collection Management Working Party of the Heritage Collections Council, and both a State and National President of the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material (AICCM Inc). She has been a member of course advisory committees for both the University of Canberra and Deakin University. She is an associate of the School of Enterprise and the Centre for Free Radical Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Melbourne.
Her research interests include programs in cultural materials conservation that focus on the materials and techniques of artists (particularly in Australia and South East Asia), ethical and philosophical issues in cultural materials conservation, and the development of scientific techniques for conservation.
In 2004 she was awarded the Australian Institute for Cultural Materials Conservation’s Conservator of the Year Award for service to the profession.
Research (from 2001)
ARC and nationally competitive research projects
- 2008: LP0883309 The twentieth century in paint
Investigators: A/Prof Robyn Joyce Sloggett, Ms Nicole Andrea Tse, Prof Carl Herbert Schiesser, Dr Stephen Peter Best, Prof John Drennan, Prof Jane Louise Hunter, Dr Thomas John Learner, Mr Andrew Durham, Ms Zanita Anuar - 2008: LP0883685 Banners in the streets: The role and impact of union material culture on Australian society 1880-1945
Investigators: A/Prof Robyn Joyce Sloggett, Prof Stuart Forbes Macintyre, Prof Verity Nancy Burgmann, Dr Sean Raymond Scalmer - 2008: DI0989457 Digitisation and Indigenous Communities: A study of the development of online collections. The interface between international institutions and Australian Indigenous communities.
Investigators: Mr Lyndon Charles Ormond-Parker, Prof Marcia Lynne Langton, A/Prof Robyn Joyce Sloggett - 2007: LE0882919 Archaeological conservation: the development of analysis and assessment protocols for adhesives used on archaeological pottery Investigators: A/Prof Robyn Sloggett, A/Prof Antonio Sagona, Ms Deborah Lau
- 2003-4:ARC Research Network Grant: SRO354824 Indigenous Collections and Knowledge Archives Research Network.
Investigators: Dr. Ian McMahon and collaborating partners ($30,000) - 2003-4:ARC Research Network Grant SR0354680: Contemporary Australian Identity, Memory and Heritage.
Investigators: Prof. William Stuart Logan and collaborating partners ($10,000) - 2002-4:ARC Linkage Grant: The Behaviour of Western Materials in Tropical Environments. (with the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Heritage Board Singapore, the National Gallery of Malaysia, the National Gallery of Thailand, the Vargas Museum University of the Philippines) (Sloggett: CI, with Prof. A. Roberts, Physics. $88,435 awarded over three years)
- 2001-3:ARC Linkage (SPIRT) Grant C00106875: Authentication of Australian Art - Artists’ Supports. (with Lauraine Diggins Fine Art) (Sloggett, CI, with Dr. A. Galbally AHCCA. $70,770 over three years)
- 2002: Establishing a Fire Disaster Preparedness Framework for Significant Private Collections in Regional Victoria. Emergency Management Australia (Joint project Manger with Marcelle Scot. $31,492)
- 2002: ITMM Specific Project or Specific Project Extension Grant: A Virtual Print Room II: A Condition Report for the Conservation of Old Master Prints. (Sloggett: Associate Investigator. With CI Professor Jaynie Anderson, AI ‘s Dr Christopher Marshall and Dr Alison Inglis) ($15,000)
- 2001: Identifying and Protecting the Cultural Value of Private Collections Throughout Victorian Rural Communities. H V McKay Charitable Trust (Project Manager $4,836)
- 2001: A Pilot Program for the Delivery of On-line Training for the Preservation of Cultural Material for Remote and Under-Resourced Communities within Victoria. Telematics Trust. (Project leaders R. Sloggett and M. Scott $20,000)
- 2001: ARC RIEF Grant: Cathodoluminiscence Electron Microscope Imaging and Elemental Analysis Facility. (CI Malcolm Wallace Earth Sciences, with AI’s Woodhead, Cartwrite, Buick, Sloggett, Universities of Melbourne, Monash & Latrobe. $223,500 provided by ARC from total of $463,500)
Other funded projects
- 2006 – 7: Breadth Subject: Learning Cultures with Marcelle Scott, Michael Piggott, Ann Roberts, Carl Scheisser, Christopher McAuliffe, Andy Brown May, Richard Collman, Belinda Nemec.
- 2006-7:Vice-Chancellor’s Steering Committee Cultural Development; Cultural Literacy with Marcia Langton, Lisa Palmer (SAGES), Michael Leigh, Arief Budiman (Asia Institute), Tony Sagona, Alison Inglis (AHCCA), Marcelle Scott and Hema Gurulung (UNESCO) ($40,000)
- 2004: Getty Conservation Institute grant for University of Melbourne. GCI Directors of Conservation Education Retreat, University of Melbourne July 2004) ($50,000)
- 2003: Gordon Darling Foundation Travel Grant Maintaining Relationships – Sustaining and Strengthening Partnerships in Asia ($10,000)
- 2003: Arts Victoria: International Export and Touring Program ($5,000)
- 2001: Arts Victoria: International Export and Touring Program ($5,000)
Publications
Book Chapters
- Cook Ian, Jan Lyall, Colin Pearson and Robyn Sloggett: ‘Putting it together – keeping it together: Key events and developments in a history of materials conservation and preservation services in Australia’ in Museum in Australia, in preparation, publication scheduled 2008
Journal articles (*Refereed Journals)
- *Sloggett, R: ‘Signifying value or valuing significance? Culture in a global context’ Archives and Manuscripts; The Journal of the Australian Society of Archives, 33 (2) November 2005, 110-129
- *Sloggett, R: “’I have now made a start…’ Paradigms in ethnographic collecting Leonhard Adam and the University of Melbourne” Open Museum Journal, 7, 2005, http://amol.org.au/craft/omjournal/volume7/docs/RJSloggett_ab.asp?ID=33
- * Sloggett, R: ‘Making The Domes of St Mark’ AICCM Bulletin, 29 (1) 2005, 47-57
- * Sloggett, R: ‘Slipping and sliding: blind optimism, greed and the effect of fakes on our cultural understanding’ ‘copy’ ed. Rachel Cobcroft and Susanna Leisten M/C Journal A Journal of Media and Culture, 8 (3) July 2005 www.media-culture.org.au
- * Sloggett, R and Sean Loughrey: ‘A Change of Mind. William Strutt's Bushrangers, Victoria, Australia, 1852 (1887)’ Melbourne Journal of Technical Studies in Art, 2 2005, 35-48,
- Sloggett, R., Young, L., and Russell, R: ‘Tangible and Intangible’. Museums National 10 (3), February 2002. 6-7
- Sloggett, R: ‘Crying ‘Fake’ – The Politics and Practicalities of Authentication’ Journal of the Australian Registrars Committee, September 2002, 3-5 and 23-24
- Sloggett, R: ‘Footstomping, Toetapping: A guide to pest eradication in museums’. Insite. Museums Australia (Victoria) June-July 2001, 14-15
- *Galbally Ann, A. Kerry and R. Sloggett: ‘Art Conservation and Art Fraud: Dissecting the Thin Blue Line’ in Tradition and Innovation: advances in conservation Contributions to the IIC Melbourne Congress. 10-14 October 2000 International Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works. London 2001, 73-6 Senior author: Sloggett.
- * Sloggett, R: ‘The Truth of the Matter: Issues and Procedures in the Authentication of Artwork’ Arts, Antiquity and Law, 5 (3) 2000, 295-303
Press articles
- Sloggett, R: ‘trust me, I’m an expert’ University News Vol. 12 No.15 25 August–8 September 2003 p. 5
- Sloggett, R: ‘Indigenous People and The Sea’ The Age May 2002 25
Book reviews
- Sloggett, R: Review of Issues in the Conservation of Paintings, Bomford and Leonard (eds.) in Museum Australia Magazine 14 (3) February 2006, 15
- Sloggett, R: Review of Suzanne Keene, Managing Conservation in Museums Second Edition 2002 Butterworths-Heinemann in Museum National 12 (2) November 2003, 32-33
Conference proceedings (*Refereed Journals)
- *Tse, N, Roberts A, and Sloggett R ‘A preliminary understanding of the behaviour of oil paintings in tropical Southeast Asia’ ICOM-CC 15 Triennial Conference, New Delhi, India September 22-26, 2008. (accepted February 2008)
- *Sloggett, R and Langton, M ‘Teaching Respect: Engendering Cultural Literacy in an Academic Environment’ ICOM-CC 15 Triennial Meeting Conference Delhi, India, September 22-26, 2008. (accepted February 2008)
- Hinde, E; Nel, P; Sloggett, R; Roberts, A; A photographic method for documenting fluorescent paint’ AICCM 2007 National Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 17-19 October 2007
- *Tse, N & Sloggett, R 2008 'Southeast Asian Oil Paintings: Supports and Preparatory layers,' in ICOM-CC Working Group Paintings (ed.), Preparation for painting: the artist's choice and its consequence, Archetype Publications: London, in press due March 2008
- *Tse, N & Sloggett, R 2008, 'Oil Painting Practice in the Philippines: two institutionalised practices and their Materials and Techniques,' in Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration, Convergence, 13-18 January 2008, International Committee of Art History, Melbourne. IN PRESS
- *Sloggett, R ‘RAMAN Analysis of Pigments found in Middle Eastern Manuscripts in the University of Melbourne Collection’ Proceedings of the Symposium on the Care and Conservation of Middle Eastern Manuscripts The Melbourne Journal of Technical Studies in Art, 26-28 November 2007, Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, The University of Melbourne, IN PRESS
- Sloggett, R: ‘Offices of Memory - The paradigm of the global as a tool for the preservation of culture’ Connections & Conversations Australian Society of Archivists Conference 2006 Proceedings available online
- Sloggett, R: ‘Positioning, Planning and Action: Developing a National Conservation Strategy for Australia’s Movable Cultural Heritage’ Conference Papers on International Conference: Heritage and Education, Antiquities and Monuments Office, Hong Kong, December 2004, 281–290
- Sloggett, R: ‘Trust Me, I’m an Expert’ International Perspectives on Peace and Reconciliation Conference July 2003 www.conferences.unimelb.edu.au/flagship
Reports
- Sloggett, R: UNESCO Museum To Museum Timor Leste Assessment Mission Dili December 2005
- Sloggett, R: Report to UNESCO on the Museum Management Technology Training Course for Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, Timor Leste Weeks One and Two. 24th February–7th March 2003
- Arthur, Tony, Jaerhling, J, Sloggett, R: Strategic Approaches to Resourcing the Cultural Collections of the University of Melbourne Internal Report 2001
- Sloggett, R: Report on visit by Robyn Sloggett to East Timor 21 – 25 May 2001 The University of Melbourne Conservation Service and Uma Fukun Timor 2001 UNESCO Jakarta May 2001
Catalogue Essays
- Sloggett, R: ‘I have now made a start’ catalogue in Bounty of the Sea – Selected Works from the Leonhard Adam Collection of International Indigenous Culture, May 2002, The Ian Potter Museum of Art
Posters
- Langton, Marcia, and Robyn Sloggett: ‘Teaching respect. Engendering cultural literacy in an academic environment’, Symposium 2007: Preserving Aboriginal Heritage – Technical and Traditional Approaches, to be held September 24-28, 2007, in Ottawa, Canada
- Troup, G.J., Hutton, D R., Sloggett, R., Lotti, F., Casni,A., Picollo, M: ‘EPR Spectroscopy Can Help with Paint Pigment Provenance.’ in Tradition and Innovation: advances in conservation. Contributions to the IIC Melbourne Congress. 10-14 October 2000 International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, London 2001
Exhibition Material
- Sloggett, R: Perpsectives–Conservation and the Art of Investigation Ian Potter Museum of Art 24 November–27 February 2002
- Sloggett, R: Seeing Red Infrared exhibition, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, 14 June–22 August 2000
Teaching
108-445 Respect
SE360184 Issues in Art Fraud
SE360185 History and Theory of Art Authentication
SE360186 Introduction to Art Authentication Techniques
SE360187 Art Authentication Investigative Project
Supervision
Minor Thesis by Coursework
2007 (Current) Master of Arts (Cultural Materials Conservation) by Coursework
- Amy Boyd, Title TBA
- Erin Chapman ‘Ascertaining the residue effect of naphthalene recrystallisation in natural history bat collections’
- Raye Collins ‘John Longstaff; materials, techniques and conservation issues’
- Rebecca Dallwitz ‘Millenium Dragon: Melbourne’s Chinese dragon lineage, construction, context and preservation’
- Jessie Firth ‘An assessment of the effectiveness of the use of dry-cleaning sponge in the cleaning of textiles’
- Karin Fisher ‘An investigation into African bark cloths; material characterisation, contextual analysis and conservation related problems’
- Helen Gill ‘The materials and techniques of Clarice Beckett’
- Selina Halim ‘Ageing Characteristics of Winsor & Newton and Marie’s Artist Oil Paints in Tropical Climates’
- Isa Loo ‘Organic residue analysis in ethnographic collections’
- Elizabeth McCartney ‘Issues in the conservation of Indigenous heritage material’
- Lisa Nolan ‘The behaviour of polyvinyl acetate and acrylic films in painting’
- Nola Orr ‘Assessment of triammonium citrate as a cleaning agent for works on paper’
- Katherine Rosenthal ‘Investigation into the causes of blistering of alkyd-resin paint films in the work of Stieg Persson’
- Nick Zhural ‘Analysing the nature and extent of the reversibility of inpainting onto the surface of an original paper object using an isolating layer’
Research Masters
- Alice Cannon: ‘A history of the use of adhesives in Victoria’
- Sabine Cotte: ‘Conservation of Tibetan paintings in Australia’
PhD
- 2007 – 2009: Ahmad Abu Baker: ‘A New Method for Stabilizing Archaeological Copper and Copper Alloys’ with Prof. Tony Sagona (Archaeology), Dr. Ian Macleod (Western Australia Museum), Russell Taylor (CSIRO)
- 2007 – 2009: Elizabeth Hinde: ‘An Examination of the Behaviour of Fluorescent Paint for Conservation’ with Dr. Petronella Nel (CCMC), Ass. Prof. Ann Roberts (Physics)
- 2004 – Current: Elaine Miles, PhD with Ass. Prof. Ann Roberts
- 2003 – Current: Nicole Tse, Ph.D APAI ‘The Characterisation of Western Artists’ Materials in Tropical Climates’ with Ass. Prof. Ann Roberts (Physics) and Dr. Alison Inglis (Art History)