Collection Care

Hello all, It has been a very busy past few weeks for the MoDiP team as we prepare to launch our new exhibition. This exhibition, Rethread , focuses on the use of sustainable materials and methods in the fashion and textile industry. Items that were manufactured using biobased materials or...

Recently some of our objects have been featured at the European House of History in their temporary exhibit, Throwaway. “Throwaway” is a project that unearths the hidden history of waste in Europe while simultaneously highlighting its significance as a marker of social change. Starting with the...

Hello all, Welcome back to the final instalment of the preservation series where we discuss how to identify and care for sensitive plastics that you may have in your collection. In previous posts we have reviewed cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) – you can find the...

MoDiP has three different examples of plastics NAAFI tokens in the collection. With reference to the image below, on the left is a circular ½ d token, in the centre an octagonal ½ franc token and on the right, a circular green coloured token valid in NAAFI Egypt only. MoDiP’s three NAAFI tokens...

When was the last time you saw a Jif lemon for sale in the supermarket? Not the brand’s lemon juice sold in a 250ml glass bottle. Not the modern, yellow, texturised, 100ml plastic bottle with the flat bottom to aid stability. I’m talking about the instantly recognisable container that realistically...

The museum recently (pre-covid) took receipt of a selection of 139 horn combs, acquired by the Worshipful Company of Horners to be accessioned into their collection, which has been cared for by MoDiP since 2010. Horn has been used since prehistoric times as a cheap, readily available, easily worked...

We are pleased to announce that in our role as convener of the Plastics SSN (PSSN), and jointly with the Dress and Textiles Specialists (DATS), we have been successful with our grant application for MoDiP for £14,500 towards Art Fund’s ‘Network grants’ scheme. The project runs from May 2020 to April...

On receiving notice that the AUB campus would be closing from 5pm on Friday 20th March 2020, in line with the Government’s country-wide lockdown for COVID-19, the MoDiP team had only a few days to get the museum organised. We had just completed the installation of our latest exhibition, Being me...

Over the past several months I have been working on an annual object condition checking project to monitor the collection for any signs of deterioration. A total of 350 objects were reviewed including all of the Cellulose Acetate and Cellulose Nitrate objects (notorious problem plastics), a sample...