E.C.C.O. 20th Anniversary Barcelona 2011
Creators: name: Dobrusskin, Sebastian
Publisher: name: E.C.C.O. – European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers' Organisations
Year: 2016
Subjects: JN Political institutions (Europe)

description: E.C.C.O., the European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers’ Organisations, celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2011. Since its foundation in 1991, E.C.C.O. has had an impact on European policies for the preservation and maintenance of cultural heritage, working to achieve legal recognition of Conservator-Restorers and promoting a high level of education and training in this profession. At present, E.C.C.O. unites 24 member associations from 22 European countries and one international body, representing close to 6000 professional Conservator-Restorers. The commemoration of E.C.C.O.’s 20th anniversary took place in Barcelona, Spain, on the 4th and 5th of April 2011. The meeting was impressively organised and thanks are due to Agnès Gall-Ortlik and the Catalonian member association of Conservator-Restorers. The occasion brought together founding members, Presidents and delegates of its member organisations. The continuing commitment of the professionals present to both the pro-fession and to E.C.C.O., was clearly evident, and for the founding members this commitment has lasted at least as long as the history of E.C.C.O. The passion with which this commitment is voiced underlines the importance of cultural heritage and clearly demonstrates the engagement and the mark E.C.C.O. leaves on the mind. Former Presidents and founding members willingly shared not only memories but their thoughts and critical reflections on the present situation and recent developments in the field. Younger professionals presented their views and their efforts to continue to improve the status of this profession in contemporary society. Their contributions in Barcelona have been collated for this publication. Contributions from members of the E.C.C.O. and ENCoRE committees have been added in the second half of the publication, setting the presentations in Barcelona into context and providing an overview of E.C.C.O.s past and present work. This documents the efforts and results of the last 20 years, which helps to pave the way forward for the next 20 years. E.C.C.O. has taken the input from the discussions both during the Barcelona meeting and at subsequent General Assemblies, together with repeated discussions within the Committee and consulta-tion with its members and partners as the basis for its Strategic Plan 2015. The updated vision and mission statement places greater emphasis on the purpose of our profession, which is to “safeguard cultural heritage for society through high standards of professional Conservation-Restoration practice”. This highlights the fundamental role of this profession as a facilitator in the engagement of society with its cultural heritage. The change of perspective that it represents originates from a number of European projects that E.C.C.O. has led or been a partner (namely APEL and following the formulation of “European recommendations for Conservation-Restoration of Cultural Heritage” together with ICCROM and ENCoRE). Such projects offer an important forum for communication with other stakeholders in the field. Conservator-Restorers are often transdisciplinary actors within a multidiciplinary field representing research, practice and education aimed at preserving and gaining appropriate social benefit from cultural heritage. Effective working practice and valid results may be achieved only through good collaboration and high quality outcomes delivered by the different contributors. This requires clearly defined areas of competence for the different actors involved and delineation between their role in the decision making process. Recognition of the role of the Conservator-Restorers in the safeguarding of cultural heritage and their relationship with other professions in the field is a prerequisite for promoting these professionals as decision makers and team players. Since access to Cultural Heritage is a human right the work of the Conservator-Restorer makes a significant contribution towards the public interest. This responsibility requires ensuring that the necessary level of qualification and accountability of the practicing Conservator-Restorer is obtained and upheld. Therefore E.C.C.O. aims for an appropriate legal framework and tries to achieve this through projects like APEL, the E.C.C.O. Guidelines or the Competences for Access to the Conservation-Restoration Profession. It is essential that legislation recognises the unique nature of Conservation-Restoration and it central role within the cultural heritage sector. This publication has developed since it started from a brochure of about 32 pages to this book with over 200 pages. More and more articles were added to the papers from the conference, demonstrating the continuous work of E.C.C.O. and part of its historic development. Due to the limited time the committee members can spend on E.C.C.O. work and given the more critical nature of other work such as the development and publication of the Strategic Plan and it’s implementation – it took longer than expected to finish E.C.C.O.’s 20th Anniversary publication. In spite of this we hope you agree that it is an important addition to the growing corpus of E.C.C.O. publications.