At the Ithra Museum, preservation of the past and unmasking the hidden treasures of art, and especially Islamic art, is of paramount importance. Acquiring and maintaining artworks to preserve some of humanity's collective memories is within the Ithra Museum’s core mission.
The work of the collection management, registration and conservation of artwork at the Ithra Museum extends cross three key aspects of museum practices: conservation of artworks, registration management of all database information and collections management, which overall encompasses the three aspects.
The conservation aspect is where art is prepared to be displayed at Ithra’s galleries and where environmental and storage conditions are optimized to securely protect the physical properties of all objects acquired and loaned.
The registration aspect of this process focuses on collecting each object’s full information into a database that constitutes the history of the entire Ithra Museums’ artwork collection, in addition to ensuring the accuracy of all necessary paperwork as well as administrative actions across Ithra and beyond.
Finally, the collections management aspect centers on overseeing the installation of all new exhibitions, the organization of storages, and updating their status. Collection management is also responsible for managing the team of art handlers and training them according to international museum standards.
This aspect of work at the Ithra Museum constitutes one of the most important developments of professional aims at the collection management, registration, and conservation of artwork at Ithra museum where we work on establishing an autonomous working unite capable of meeting the highest international museum standards.
In this field, marked by wonders of the past, perspective becomes everything. When pooling together different aspects to understand intricacies in addition to the bigger picture, we are better able to conserve cultural and historical memory. My studies in Islamic art history combined with my background in conservation of paper, textiles, and precious carpets, along with technical analysis of costumes and textiles, allows me to understand Ithra’s growing collections from multiple perspectives.
At the Ithra Museum, we believe that academic research is a needed constant development, especially in providing a well-rounded approach to textile analyses and protection and in advancing ethical criteria in the preservation of material culture.
Konstantinos Chatziantoniou
Head of Collection Management, Registration, and Conservation of Artwork at Ithra Museum
