Responding to times of change

Deconstructing conservation – dismantling its rhetoric to reveal its inner tensions – is a challenging task. Like our times themselves – which we inevitably reflect in our practice – we are driven by a need to reveal, to look below the surface, expose the hidden paradigms. But, our times are also about integration and synthesis, valuing anew ethics and spirituality. Our times are about reconstructing in new ways, with new truths. And our times themselves are constructed on hidden tensions, paradoxical and polarised positions. And what does conservation mean in a time of change? What role is there for the processes of “keeping” – protecting from all kinds of change – during a time that is so characterised by change? Is our role to be the conservatives – the registers of change? Those who adhere to the existing order of things, opposed to progress? Responsiveness versus resistance to change seems to be at the heart of many community debates about conserving our heritage. And in our debates, social value versus fabric seem to reflect similar polarities.