A curator's guide to plastics

Project dates : 2007

This guide is a Plastics SSN resource funded by the Museums Libraries and Archives Council.

It is intended for those with little or no prior knowledge of plastics and as a starting point for further exploration. It will help you identify and look after objects made of plastics, demonstrates how plastics have increasingly become significant, and suggests themes for their interpretation and presentation.

Its creation involved four national workshops and over 100 plastics experts, academics, curators and conservators. The slides that formed many of these presentations can be seen here: http://www.materials.ac.uk/events/plastics-slides.asp. More information about the process and participants is available at Methodology and contributors.

What are plastics? >