Australia has been impacted by a series of devastating disasters over the past few years. Fires, numerous floods, and the pandemic. The trauma, the uncertainty, the devastation and loss has been life changing for those affected.

Collection disaster planning is one way to prepare our museums, keeping places and collections for disasters, and has always been one of my passions. Since I first started as a conservator and I responded to a fire related recovery of an art collection in Sydney I could see the importance of preparing for disasters.

I have recently been working to assist two separate organisations in developing their Collection Disaster Plan. Each project has been developed to intimately work with the site, collection, organisational or Council structure and staff capabilities. The collection disaster plan is fundamental in providing a guiding document to support staff in the event of a disaster and these organisations have realised this importance and reached out to develop a robust collection disaster plan.

The Bendigo Art Gallery team approached me in 2021 to assist with developing their Collection Disaster Plan. This was following a Preservation Needs Assessment and a strong understanding of the importance of the Collection Disaster Plan coupled with the need for indemnification of incoming national and international travelling exhibitions. 

This project began during Covid lockdowns and therefore remote consultations and zoom meetings featured from the outset. This level of communication was beneficial in providing consistent support and connection with the staff during every phase of the Collection Disaster Plan. 

I believe that it is critical that the plan is developed with the involvement of key staff to ensure that a deep understanding of the systems of approach are understood. The Bendigo team included the collection managers, registrars, curators and external risk managers.

The plan creation has taken a little longer than initially expected. Covid, international exhibitions and the usual interruptions have occurred over the past 18 months. However the plan is complete and to embed the plan within the Bendigo team I ran two training sessions with staff. 

The training sessions are integral to the success of the plan and during this two day visit I introduced the collection disaster plan to all relevant staff, highlighted their roles and discussed scenarios. This was attended by all relevant staff including the Director, media, collection representations, administration and finance. This was an insightful experience for the Bendigo team. The staff shared thoughts on understanding the importance of the collection disaster plan and ideas on how they will work within their roles.

The focus of the second session was practical experience using the plan and recovering water damaged materials. This was a lively workshop with staff embracing their roles and delegating tasks amongst the team. The water damaged materials were representative of the Bendigo Art Gallery collection and highlighted some unique issues with modern materials in art collections.

The second Collection Disaster Plan project that I am working on is still in progress. I hope to be able to report on it soon. A key difference between the two projects is the second one is a collection disaster plan across multiple sites with a core of staff responding to the disaster.

Please reach out if you are interested in discussing disaster planning or need any advice in recovery after a disaster.