The transdisciplinary research project was developed in response to a fascinating, but “broken collection”: The Scherbenzimmer (“shard room”) at Loosdorf Castle: a room containing hundreds of broken porcelain pieces. These are the remains of a collection of Chinese, Japanese and European porcelain objects from the 18th and 19th centuries, which was collected by the Piatti family.
About
The project Broken Collection carries out the conservation survey and research into the collection’s history, the relationship between people and objects, from production and collection to destruction and preservation.
A series of workshops explores the collection and creates new approaches through transdisciplinary artistic research and international collaboration with experts from various fields.
Initially via coincidence an expert team from Japan realized the potential of the broken artifacts in the castle. a selection of particularly valuable objects were shipped to Japan their original „birth place“ and were restored according to Japanese state of the art restoration practices. After a very successfull exhibition tour in Asia the exquisit pieces came back to Loosdorf.
In 2023 a long term artistic research project around the Broken Collection was started. In general there are three primary ways to deal with a “broken collection”: fixing or hiding it, or, in the worst case, discarding it. However, it is simply not possible to “undo”, to “reverse”, all damages and losses.
Within this project new ways to go beyond „brokeness“ and fragmenation are explored, by breaking free of disciplinary borders, which restrict
thinking and understanding about this topic. The goal is to foster curiosity and to critically reflect on established disciplines and traditional methods of conservation with the help and the driving force of art and artistic research.
The project is hosted at the Institute of Conservation of the University of Applied Arts. And collaborates with a team of international experts.
