Dr Hélia Marçal

Hélia Marçal (ˈɛliɐ maʁˈsaw - hear my name) 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).

Hélia is also the Vice-Dean for the Bicentennial / UCL200 Champion for the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences.

Research

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.

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.

Specialisms

Materiality in the conservation of time-based media and performance art
Feminist new materialisms
Ethics and performativity of cultural heritage

Publications 

• [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]   
• “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].
• [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.

Full publications list on UCL Profiles.

Teaching 

Hélia has taught several courses in both Portugal and the United Kingdom. During the academic year 2024-2025, Hélia will be teaching:

• HART0054 Theory and History of Conservation
• HART0148 Introduction to Media and Technologies

Supervision

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.

• 2024 - 2027         Principal supervisor, Towards New Materialities of Chinese Socialist Realism (1966-2019): From Performance to New Media Art, Colin Mao, Funded by the Critical Histories Scholarship.
• 2022 – 2026        Secondary supervisor, A forma do tempo: Mapear a intenção artística para a preservação de novos media no contexto português, Francisca Sousa, Funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia – PT.
• 2022 – 2025        Principal supervisor, Material/Code/Stack: Conserving Born-Digital Objects and their Infrastructures, Anna Mladentseva, Funded by the LAHP – London Arts and Humanities Partnership
• 2022 – 2025        Secondary supervisor, Revisioning: Experimental Dance, Museums, and Yvonne Rainer, Caitrín Barrett-Donlon, Funded by the LAHP.
• 2022 – 2025        Secondary supervisor, Porous Bodies: Ecologies of Matter in Contemporary Art, Zaena Sheehan, Funded by the LAHP.