AIC's 51st Annual Meeting

Musical instruments may pose particular ethical questions in collections settings due to their unique status as functional objects whose core purpose is contingent upon the production of sound, a factor that is typically made unavailable when they enter a museum collection. The conservation of these objects is accordingly complex, and accepted levels of intervention vary significantly between institutions. This presentation concerns the treatment of a 19th-century oud at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) with significant structural damage. The author’s background as a classically trained guitarist along with her interest in conservation ethics and decision-making informed a people-centric approach to the treatment, which welcomed experts outside of the CMA network to contribute to the decision-making process. Discussions with ethnomusicologists, musical instrument conservators, and an oud scholar and player provided critical contextual information and elucidated a path forward. Ultimately, the treatment involved a compromise between minimally and highly interventive tactics, resulting in an approach that addressed structural and aesthetic concerns while preserving historical information as much as possible. Despite numerous obstacles, the project provided an opportunity to interrogate the values motivating standard conservation practice, examine the philosophical differences between a museum object and a functional musical instrument, and foreground voices not typically heard in the museum setting.