Abstract
The basis for this contribution is the essay, “Toxic Leftovers of Collecting” (Caviezel 2022: 69-78), which deals with the processes involved in decontaminating asbestos-contaminated vintage cars in a Swiss foundation’s collection. Extending the body of research to its relational contexts of more-than-human ecologies, this contribution focuses on asbestos and rubber components that contain asbestos, both of which are built into vintage cars. Following the traces of these materials offers insight into the post-/colonial entanglements of the mining, processing, and trading industries. Tracing as a practice of artistic research addresses the fragmentary nature of those transnational ecologies and the emerging multivocal, multilocal, and multisensory narratives by spinning mental networks between the multifaceted fragments connected to the collection objects.
Preface
In 2021, I conducted audiovisual research published under the title Toxic Leftovers of Collecting (Caviezel 2022: 69-78).1 The work focused on the cleaning and transformation processes of asbestos-contaminated vintage cars belonging to the collection of a Swiss foundation. Conservation was viewed from a dual perspective: the maintenance operations that the collection requires, and the human-material entanglements that these operations entail. Drawing on the broad framework of New Materialism, I elaborated an image-based essay that outlines the balancing act between preservation and elimination, restoration, remediation, and disposal that confront collections with contentious or toxic materials today. These handling practices require a deepened examination of the dangers caused by pollutants built into objects or added later by conservation treatments. Awareness of the toxic agency of these materials and vestiges of any treatments has greatly affected the everyday practice of conservation. The essay aimed to contribute to the increasing focus on chemical contamination and toxicity since the 1990s, and to the ecological and political relevance of objects and materials, which also applies to the field of collections.
This essay continues and extends my research by exploring more amply the relational contexts of more-than-human ecologies in the context of object production and conservation. It focuses particularly on asbestos and rubber components containing asbestos built into vintage cars as well as their traces in time and space. The study will reach beyond the closed circuit of foundation and museum collections and examine the connections of the material composition of the exhibits across history. It will offer insight into the post-/colonial entanglements of the material’s mining, processing, and trading, and the inscribed transnational implications. Also, I want to complicate the notion of conservation by including extended material tracings of (invisible) components contained in collections that can considerably alter the understanding of global interdependencies. The vintage cars in the Swiss collection are connected to global mining and industrial production networks structured by race, class, and gender dimensions.
My geographical focus is the USA, as it is the pivot of the relevant companies’ business activities. Of special interest are the production chains of the Stanley Steamer Roadster, a classic car constructed in 1906 by the Stanley Motor Carriage Company in Watertown, New York.
Rather than write an exhaustive history of these material entanglements, I shall resort to tracing as a methodological approach, creating a fragmentary narrative. As a practice of artistic research, tracing addresses the fragmentary non-linear character of the transnational ecologies and their emerging multivocal, multilocal, and multisensory narratives by weaving mental networks between the multifaceted fragments which are linked to the collection objects.2 The essay combines audiovisual and textual research material. Images, sounds, words, sensations, information, and analytical commentary are juxtaposed to create different layers of perception and reception. My essay attempts to promote the societal transformations necessary beyond the field of heritage conservation. From analysis of the economic, social, and ecological conditions of the extraction and production processes of materials and objects, we can build a more responsible relationship towards objects, an epistemological shift from the German “ent-sorgen”/discarding (literally “dis-caring”), to ‘sorgen”/caring.
2 - I refer to the prior research project Times of Waste (https://times-of-waste.ch) and its online archive, the Smartphone Object Biography (https://objektbiografie.times-of-waste.ch/en/) developed by a research team including myself (PI), Mirjam Bürgin, Anselm Caminada, Adrian Demleitner, Marion Mertens, Yvonne Volkart, and Sonia Malpeso. ↩
Acknowledgement
My sincere thanks go to all who contributed to the writing of this essay, especially Lotte Arndt and Noémie Etienne for their support in conceptualizing the article and providing feedback for early versions; Mirjam Bürgin and Marion Mertens (Handle with Care research team) for subject-specific discussions on toxicity issues; the Stiftung für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte (SKKG), Bafob and the Analysis Lab Bern for consenting to the re-publication of images of the vintage car’s decontamination; the Library of Congress for access to the movie The Story of Asbestos; the editorial team, and the reviewer for their careful editorial work.
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