During 2019, the Australian Performing Arts Collection (APAC) received a donation of costumes, adornments, jewellery, headpieces and accessories worn by Dame Joan Sutherland from Opera Australia. The collection contains significant pieces associated with some of her most recognisable roles; each containing an assortment of dressings and adornments, completing the entire costume. A focused project, to document, research, preserve and rehouse the selection of items, created a volume of work which saw the project undertaken at the Art Centre’s off-site storage at Public Records Office, Victoria. 

A team of The Arts Centre staff and independent suppliers was formed to develop strategies to maintain and preserve the collection, and to mitigate the natural rate of deterioration. Tiaki Objects Conservation worked with conservators and collection staff to create new and bespoke housing, during the project, to store the variety of accessories and adornments that accompanied the costumes in this collection. This included items, such as fans, earrings, gloves, shoes, belts, necklaces, and headpieces, to name a few. The Art Centre aimed to reduce the storage footprint for the collection, therefore the storage solutions that we created needed to fit certain specifications to meet these requirements. We were able to create storage, using existing storage material and custom-fitting standard blue/grey, archival boxes. Similar sized objects were fitted to similar sized storage, while groups of more than one associated piece, were stored in custom trays, that were nested inside standard archival boxes. We recycled materials as much as possible, carving out mounts and storage support pieces from existing foams and archival materials, where possible, to reduce the collective storage footprint, and ensure preservation of the collection, long term.