Provisional semantics addresses a fundamental challenge facing the Towards a National Collection programme: how to develop ethical, equitable and transparent readings to support a more diverse public to engage with the digitised national collection. Currently, many subject index terms, catalogue entries and associated captions of artworks, visual media and artefacts have been informed by colonial contexts, attitudes and modes of perception. These can therefore be outdated and/or offensive to present day audiences, not least people of African and Asian descent in the UK, whose diasporic histories are intertwined with Britain's colonial and imperial past. Outdated and offensive language and interpretation deters engagement by the very audiences that collections seek to attract. Many in the heritage sector recognise the need to interrogate and redress problematic language and representations and there is a drive to decolonise - that is to explore and undo fundamental relationships of power and inequity, and to diversify - that is to present multiple perspectives. Yet at present the lack of research examining what is required in terms of ethical methodologies and practical and attitudinal shifts prevents sustainable change from taking place. Provisional semantics seeks to address this challenge by (1) examining what methodological, ethical and practical changes heritage organisations need to make to accommodate the multiple and provisional interpretations necessary for a sustainable digitised national collection to genuinely represent UK Heritage. And (2) testing what methods and approaches that engage intellectually and practically with the decolonial agenda can heritage organisations employ to produce search terms/catalogue entries and interpretations fit for purpose for an evolving digitised national collection. Over 18 months the project will undertake a wide-ranging literature and practice review and utilise three case studies centred on specific collections at The National Trust, Imperial War Museum and Tate that address the histories, representations and artistic practices of people of African and Asian descent. Each case study will test a different approach to collaborating with key stakeholders of each collection whose expertise as people of African and Asian descent can help provide more equitable, multi-perspectival interpretations. This research will be further enhanced by a close reading of sample texts from each collection undertaken by our academic partner, Dr Anjalie Dalal-Clayton, whose research focuses on arts and decolonisation in museums, collections and heritage organisations. In addition to the case studies and close readings, the main output will be a state of the art report that brings together the findings from the research, outlines the key challenges and provides evidence-based recommendations. These recommendations will have been tested with a group of interdisciplinary experts and disseminated to a wider group of heritage organisation professionals, academics and representatives from the standards agencies via 'sense-checking' workshops, events linked to the wider programme, journal articles, social media and through the project webpages that will be maintained on the Tate website. Through piloting methodologies Provisional Semantics will contribute new knowledge and directly support heritage organisations seeking to decolonise and diversify their collections as an embedded strategy towards developing a genuinely representative digitised national collection. The research aims to meet the needs of academics, standards agencies, heritage professionals, policy makers and the wider public. Importantly, Provisional Semantics will have wider benefits in terms of reshaping how key stakeholders of African and Asian descent can actively participate in forming the narratives of UK Heritage.

Within the context of safeguarding tangible heritage for current and future generations, 20th- and 21st-century oil paintings are presenting a range of challenging problems that are distinctly different from those noted in paintings from previous centuries. Problems are often but not exclusively associated with unvarnished, unprotected surfaces. Phenomena increasingly observed include the formation of vulnerable surface 'skins' of medium on paint surfaces, efflorescence, unpredictable water and solvent sensitivity, and alarming incidences of dripping paints several years after the paintings have been completed. The current lack of understanding of the nature of change in modern manufactured oil paints means that the established empirical approach to conservation treatments such as surface cleaning are not applicable to a great number of works. In particular, commonly used systems that rely upon water as a major component cannot be applied to clean modern oil paintings. So far, few alternative methods of treatment have proven effective and as a consequence the presentation of modern oil paintings may be compromised. This project aims at making a significant impact on our understanding of the reasons behind these phenomena by exploring several aspects of paint formulations (oil fraction, pigment-medium interactions, additives) and case study works of art. This will in turn facilitate the modification and development of surface cleaning systems that are more appropriate for use on the increasing numbers of unvarnished oil paintings in international and private collections. New cleaning systems will be trialed on works of art in several internationally significant public collections. This information will be disseminated via web platforms, seminars, conferences and a documentary for the general public and the cleaning systems will be introduced through continuous professional development workshops for practicing conservators, thereby offering practical solutions to conservators facing these difficult challenges.

Summary\n\nNew Media Art describes certain kinds of art practise that exploits the potential of various digital media technologies. What we might consider to be contemporary 'Intermedia Art' moves amongst and between these media technologies and other performative forms and, in so doing, raises key questions about creative, institutional and audience engagement with the visual. These topics, and notions of performativity and authenticity, will be explored by this Network. The elements that may be found in New Media Art might include durational and time-based works, art which is screen-based, sometimes with a strong narrative and sometimes philosophically conceptual. Notions of authorship and authenticity have for so long been central to most western theories of art and the challenge comes in understanding which categories should be applied to a work of digital art when the format of the original is unclear, where it is technically impossible to distinguish between the original and subsequent versions and when it is impossible to confirm how many versions or editions exist? Given these mystifying circumstances and ambiguities, how might 'performativity' be understood in relation to such art? If we cannot be sure what we are engaging with, how can we relate to or comprehend the position of the author responsible?\n\nThe Network will exploit Tate's unrivalled position in relation to the acquisition, technical management and understanding of Art,, establishing an interdisciplinary forum to set out what will be the key research questions in the subject area of New Media Art. Museums displaying contemporary art are increasing challenged by the rapid pace of change and technical innovation associated with New Media Art / the kinds of spaces that will be needed, the kinds of technical infra-structure and the kinds of interpretation that will best suit its audiences? \n\nA form of art that eludes familiar and accepted categories demands the attention of scholars from an equally wide range of disciplines, hence the decision to constitute the Network as an interdisciplinary body and use the significant potential of Tate On-line to disseminate the findings to wider audiences. The core participants of the Network will include artist-practitioners, scholars in various disciplinary fields, both established and at postgraduate levels, as well as curators.\n\nThe Network will convene at Tate Modern on five occasions over a two-year period. Each meeting will have a theme and for each meeting a small working group will be charged with the production and dissemination of interim findings towards the publication of a final Summary Report. The programme will open with a meeting about performativity and intermedia in relation to the historical and critical positioning of New Media Art and at Meeting Two, the topic will be authenticity and the challenge that ambiguity with regard to authorship, originality and value represents to gallery and art museum acquisition policies. At Meetings Three and Four , the Network will consider the key material and practical museological questions of architectural space and technical infrastructure as well as the potential of non-physical digital 'platforms' before turning finally at Meeting Five to the business of commissioning and displaying New Media Art.\n\n Following the final meeting, the Principal Investigator will oversee the final editing of each Research Report arising from the five meetings of the Network to produce an invaluable set of working and position papers in a field that will have immediate application to ongoing research projects and disseminated via Tate On-Line.\n

This fellowship addresses two priorities for Tate and art museums generally: developing research-led practice and greater co-production with audiences. I will examine how practitioner-led co-produced research practices can be embedded in art museums. It has been prompted by a growing interest in framing the art museum as a space for research-led activity that is undertaken by curators and educators working collaboratively with audiences and others. This interest has itself been prompted by criticisms of art museums as sites of cultural exclusivity alongside museum professionals' frustration regarding how their ongoing activities can be understood as research. My project interrogates accepted thinking on research in the art museum by (1) examining and building on a diverse set of existing interdisciplinary literatures not normally used in gallery contexts. And (2) interrogating five comparative case studies of exploratory research-led co-constructed art museum practice. It will develop a context specific framework for practitioner research that foregrounds creativity and innovation and challenges dominant orthodoxies and hierarchies of knowledge. The framework will support museum professionals and researchers to bring about change in art museum research practices. The main output will be a book about emerging models of research being adopted within museums. These models give agency to practitioner researchers who devise programmes, curate exhibitions and facilitate audience engagement and learning and who are, through this, engaged in generating new knowledge and theories. To achieve this, the book will draw on an extensive multidisciplinary literature review and five case studies from the UK, Europe and America to illuminate how different museum practices can be productively understood as research. In building a framework for practitioner research within the art museum, the book will explore connections between research, art practice, curation and learning and draw on theories associated with practice as research and the practitioner scholar. The text will tease out the relevance of these ideas for the art museum sector, reflecting on the challenges inherent in adopting them, but also highlighting the benefits to individuals and institutions of implementing approaches informed by these theories. The framework will be tested with a group of interdisciplinary experts and disseminated to a wider group of museum professionals and researchers via seminars, a research blog, journal articles and the book. The book will thus provide innovative insights and useful guidance for museum professionals and researchers carrying out research in their institutional settings. Overall the fellowship will develop my knowledge, skills and experience enabling me to become a leader in the field of practitioner research in galleries.

The focus of our application to the AHRC Capability for Collections Fund is the refurbishment and upgrading of spaces, facilities and equipment within the Conservation Science and Preventive Conservation (CSPC) section of Tate's Collection Care division. All spaces are located within the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital building on Tate Britain's Millbank site. Designed as hospital wards, the six spaces across three floors with their awkward shapes, draughty windows and ageing infrastructure, have never been truly fit for purpose. Developing organically since 1993, they house a permanent team of 5 staff, plus fixed-term posts, seconded Tate research staff, interns, post-graduates and researchers. They are in urgent need of redesign and refurbishment to create a cohesive, flexible and operationally effective suite of rooms that are energy efficient and health & safety compliant. Within the lab spaces, we are also requesting replacement/upgrades to key core scientific instruments nearing obsolescence. As a GLAM sector institution, building maintenance and public-facing areas have necessarily been prioritised for constrained capital investment. This essential upgrade will ensure business continuity, facilitate collaboration and significantly enhance research capability and capacity. At the core of Tate's Research Strategy is the imperative that research impacts our practice. Conservation Science is exemplary in this regard, working closely with practitioners to successfully translate research into innovation in the care of Tate's evolving collections; recognised through two ICON Anna Plowden Trust awards for Research and Innovation in Conservation (2010, 2015). The small team is a major contributor to Tate's vibrant research culture, securing 40% of Collection Care Research funds in the past 6 years and actively enhancing Tate's status as an Independent Research Organisation. They have a long tradition of co-supervision of doctoral students and deliver impactful research in contemporary art materials, historic British paintings, preventive conservation and cleaning science. They share their work with broad audiences, with consistently high publication, presentation and professional development outputs. Restoring Rothko and Conserving Whaam! are among Tate's most popular on-line films and the most-watched by 18-34-year olds. The team founded the Modern Oils Research Consortium and lead the field in innovative treatment research on modern painted surfaces. They have secured awards from the European Framework Programme for ground-breaking science-driven collaborative projects such as Nanorestart (2015-2018), as well as an AHRC award for Cleaning Modern Oil Paints (2015-2018), another from the joint AHRC-EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme (2010-2015), and currently host 3 AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships. Their research recognises the value of different forms of knowledge, having developed inherently inclusive and interdisciplinary research methods which directly influence conservation practice and technical art history nationally and internationally. This vital opportunity to renew our facilities will safeguard the future of scientific research at Tate and transform our contribution to the sector. By increasing capacity, supporting access, fostering wellbeing and facilitating collaboration, research activity will grow within Conservation and Collection Care to evolve into innovative policy and practice. This award will contribute towards Tate's long-term goal of developing a state-of-the-art Collections Centre to support knowledge exchange and act as a nexus for inter-disciplinary, creative research. As we actively embed our Research Strategy and Tate's values into our work and partnerships, it is essential that these facilities are upgraded now to enhance our capability for future research and innovation as a member of a UK-wide distributed and impactful heritage research network and the World Class Labs initiative.