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Hélia Marçal is Lecturer in History of Art, Materials and Technology.
Her current research interests are positioned within feminist new materialisms, material histories of activist artworks, ethics and performativity of cultural heritage, the conservation of time-based media and performance art, and both the materiality of contemporary art and the ways it is positioned and negotiated by museum, heritage, and conservation practices.
She has published about conservation theory and ethics, embodied memories and the body-archive, and public policies of participation and stewardship of cultural heritage. Her recent book project is on posthumanism and collection care practices in museums (under contract with Routledge, co-authored with Dr Rebecca Gordon).
Contact Details
Office: 305, 21 Gordon Square
Office hours: Wednesday 12-1pm (online or in person). Term-time only. Booking required: Book here.
Email: h.marcal@ucl.ac.uk
Appointment
Lecturer in History of Art, Materials and Technology
Department of History of Art
Faculty of S&HS
Research Themes
Materiality in the conservation of time-based media and performance art; feminist new materialisms; ethics and performativity of cultural heritage; notions of periphery/decentring, inclusions/exclusions, in material art histories and conservation
Art, Design & Architecture
Cultural Understanding
Heritage, History & Cultures
Materials
Research
Research Summary
Hélia’s current research interests continue to draw on feminist new materialisms to examine material histories of activist artworks and the negotiation of ethics and performativity of cultural heritage in the public sphere. She has published about conservation theory and ethics, embodied memories and the body-archive, and public policies of participation and stewardship of cultural heritage.
Before her appointment at UCL, she was a researcher in the project Reshaping the Collectible: When Artworks Live in the Museum (2018-2020). Her work focused on how museum practices and artworks are constructed through interactions between people, artworks, technology, and infrastructures. In developing that research strand, she interrogated not only the material constitution of artworks, museums, and agencies, but also ethics of becoming art in the museum, and the ecologies of memory needed to safeguard artworks and objects across cultures of preservation. The project’s case-studies included performance artworks, digital art, multimedia installations, archival materials, and community-led performances. While at Tate, she was also involved in the project Documentation and Conservation of Performance.
Research Activities
Hélia sits on the editorial board of the Journal of the Institute of Conservation and has reviewed articles for several peer-reviewed journals in the fields of visual arts and performing arts, museums and heritage studies. She was Coordinator of the Working Group on Theory, History and Ethics of Conservation of the Committee for Conservation of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-CC, 2016-2023). She collaborates with the Instituto de História Contemporânea (FCSH-NOVA) and the IN2Past Laboratory.
Publications
This is a list of selected publications. For a complete and up-to-date list of publications, please consult Hélia’s IRIS profile.
JOURNAL ARTICLES
[Co-authored with Joel Taylor] “Conservation in the Performative Turn”, Studies in Conservation, 67: sup1, 260-266, 2022. [Open Access]
“Becoming Difference: On the Ethics of Conserving the In-Between”, Studies in Conservation, 2021. [Open Access]
“Diffracting histories of performance: participatory practices in the historicization of political performance art”, Performance Research, On Disappearance, 24:7, 39-46, 2019.
[Co-authored with Louise Lawson and Acatia Finbow] “Developing a conservation strategy for performance-based artworks at Tate”, Journal of the Institute of Conservation, 42:2, 114-134, 2019.
[Co-authored with Cláudia Madeira and Daniela Salazar] “Performance art temporalities: relationships between Museum, University, and Theatre”, Museum Management and Curatorship, 33:1, 79-95, 2018.
“Conservation in the era of participation”, Journal of the Institute of Conservation, 40: 2, 97-104, 2017. [Open Access]
Chapters in books
“Vitality and the conservation of performance”, in Performance: The Ethics and the Politics of Conservation and Care, Volume I, ed. by Hanna Hölling, Jules Pelta Feldman, Emilie Magnin, pp tbc. London and New York: Routledge, 2023 [forthcoming].
“Entangled ethics: heritage conservation, transmission and participation”, in From Conservation to Conservation: Rethinking Collections Care, ed. by Farideh Fekrsanati and Gabriel Schimmeroth, pp. 131-141. Hamburg: MAARK, 2023. [Open Access]
“A Word about Performance Art”, in Conservation of Time-Based Media Art, ed. by Joanna Philips and Deena Engel, pp. 512-520. London and New York: Routledge, 2022.
[Co-authored with Rebecca Gordon] “Affirming future(s): towards a posthumanist conservation in practice”, in Posthumanism in Practice, ed. By Christine Daigle and Matthew Hayler, pp. 165-178. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022.
[Co-authored with Farideh Fekrsanati] “Affirming Change in Participatory Practices of Cultural Conservation”, in Participatory Practices in Art and Cultural Heritage: Learning Through and from Collaboration, ed. By Christoph Rausch, Ruth Benschop, Emilie Sitzia, Vivian van Saaze, [online version, npn]. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2022.
Peer-reviewed conference proceedings
“Towards a relational ontology of conservation”, ICOM-CC 19th Triennial Meeting, Beijing, May 2021, edited by Janet Bridgland, 8. Paris: International Council of Museums, 2021.
[Co-authored with Louise Lawson] “Unfolding interactions in the conservation of performance art”, ICOM-CC 19th Triennial Meeting, Beijing, May 2021, edited by Janet Bridgland, 8. Paris: International Council of Museums, 2021.
[Co-authored with Rita Macedo and António M. Duarte] “The inevitable subjective nature of conservation: psychological insights on the process of decision-making”, ICOM-CC 17th Triennial Meeting Preprints, Melbourne 15-19 September 2014, edited by Janet Bridgland, 8. Paris: International Council of Museums, 2014. [Open Access]
articles in collections
“Ecologies of Memory in the Conservation of Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain,” in Reshaping the Collectible: Tony Conrad, Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain, Tate Research Publication, 2022. [Open Access]
[Co-authored with Louise Lawson and Ana Ribeiro] “Experimenting with transmission”, in Reshaping the Collectible: Tony Conrad, Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain, Tate Research Publication, 2022. [Open Access]
REPORTS
“Contemporary Art Conservation,” published as part of the research project Reshaping the Collectible: When Artworks Live in the Museum, Tate, 2019. [Open Access]
DIGITAL RESOURCES
“Documentation Tool: Material History”, in Documentation and Conservation of Performance (March 2016 – March 2021), a Time-based Media Conservation project at Tate. [Open Access]
[Co-authored with Louise Lawson, Ana Ribeiro, Duncan Harvey, and Acatia Finbow] “Strategy and Glossary of Terms for the Documentation and Conservation of Performance” , published as part of Documentation and Conservation of Performance (March 2016 – March 2021), a Time-based Media Conservation project at Tate. [Open Access]
[Co-authored with Louise Lawson, Ana Ribeiro, Duncan Harvey, and Acatia Finbow] “Documentation Tool: Performance Specification”, published as part of Documentation and Conservation of Performance (March 2016 – March 2021), a Time-based Media Conservation project at Tate. [Open Access]
Teaching and Supervision
Hélia has taught several courses in both Portugal and the United Kingdom.
During the academic year 2023-2024, Hélia will be teaching:
HART0054 Theory and History of Conservation
HART0148 Introduction to Media and Technologies
HART0164 Social Lives of Artworks
She would be interested to hear from potential postgraduate students who wish to develop their research in material art histories, conservation of contemporary, time-based media, and performance art, ethics and performativity of cultural heritage. Potential applicants should contact Hélia directly via email.