MCC Jordan Syria Tunisia 2014 has just started at CCA’s headquarters near Rome. It is part of MOSAIKON, an initiative aiming to promote best practice in mosaics preservation in the Mediterranean region. Partners of the project are the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), the Getty Foundation, the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), and the International Committee for the Conservation of Mosaics (ICCM).
MCC JST 2014 started on September 29th, and it will run until October 24th. The participants of the course are conservators-restorers from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, the Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums, and the Tunisian Institut National du Patrimoine.
We are delighted to welcome Mashhour Altfiehat, Nemer Alzouby, Mohammad Sh’Yyab, Firas Tbayshat (Jordan), Mohamad Moutaz Alshaieb (Syria), Taieb Belgacem, Ferhani Chihaoui and Hamadi Sillini (Tunisia). You will learn more about them in the next blog post.
This course aims to train a team of conservators-restorers in the technical and managing skills necessary to develop a conservation project in all its phases. The focus of the course is on detached mosaics, both in storage and in museum display. The course program is based on both theoretical lessons and laboratory activities. The educational experience is integrated by fieldtrips to cultural places and archaeological sites, as well as group work and discussions.
Theoretical lessons are held by established professionals in the field of cultural heritage conservation, both CCA members such as Roberto Nardi and Andreina Costanzi Cobau, and external international experts, such as Gaël de Guichen and Demetrios Michaelides, honorary President and President of ICCM. A significant portion of time during the course is spent carrying out treatments in the laboratory, gaining first-hand experience in the conservation of an original Roman mosaic, dated to the 2ndcentury A.D., kindly provided by Museo delle Terme in Rome. Laboratory activities are undertaken under the guidance of Roberto Cassio, supervisor of the mosaic conservation laboratory in the Vatican Museums.
On conclusion of the course, all of them will attend a meeting of all students from former MOSAIKON – MCC courses 2010-2014. The MCC meeting 2014 will take place in Alghero, at the Faculty of Architecture, on the 25th of October 2014 and it will be an important occasion for sharing experience and professional development. Following the meeting, participants will attend the 12thConference of ICCM (Alghero 26th – 31st October 2014).
Roberto Nardi, CCA Director and ICCM Vice President, is enthusiastic for the new MCC JST 2014 participants group:
“We are very satisfied of having organized a new training course that is embracing not only three different countries, but also different generations of conservators-restorers, in a way or another linked to CCA’s training courses.
Indeed, for the first time we include a participant who had already been here in 1998, within the first course organized for the Getty Conservation Course (GCI) in Utica (Tunisia). Also, another participant is currently a student of the group of conservators-restorers that were with us during MCC Syria 2011-2013, and that are now trainers themselves. Furthermore, for the first time the course organization has counted on the support of the Director General of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, himself a former participant of a training course that took place in Jordan, Syria and Italy in 1999-2000 for UNESCO with funds from the Italian Ministry of Foreigner Affairs.
I am very optimistic for this course, since from the presentations that participants gave during the first two days of activities, related to their work back home, we were able to verify ourselves the impressive progress made by them in improving the quality of the interventions carried out in their countries. This gives us the clear impression that all the efforts made in the last 15 years by ICCM and GCI, today gathered in the MOSAIKON project with the support of the Getty Foundation, are giving good results.
I wish our participants a great experience here in Italy, to further develop their professional skills.”