AIC's 46th Annual Meeting

Toilet paper is one of our daily necessities. However, when it is becomes a museum object that needs to carefully be treated and stored, it takes a lot of efforts for its light, thin and soft property. This essay targets on making preventive conservation of toilet tissue object by utilizing friction and static electricity. Unlike other paper objects, the toilet paper has same special properties; for example, it is thinner to be torn apart, lighter to be blown away, and more sensitive to moisture. For those reasons, we need to preserve and display this kind of object in different ways instead of expected paper conservation ideas. We focus on how to preserve and display this kind of object by choosing suitable materials and trying different methods of fixing museum objects. Due to its vulnerable structure and hygroscopic feature, we avoid using any adhesive on the object directly. Instead, we try to use friction and static electricity testing the stability of storage method. First of all, we made use of the storage method of textiles and fiber objects- to fix the paper and the textile via friction. Through friction tests, we found the object could be sit steadily on textile. Then, we made a deep window with inner tray for each toilet paper. Last, we fixed the object with imperceptible strips to preserve sliding and falling. Therefore, we found the static electricity is another function to hold the toilet tissue object, not only the friction but the static electricity became ideal way to house and display object at the same time. The object is a manuscript written by Lu Hsiu-lien on toilet paper with a ballpoint pen when she was imprisoned for a political event known as “Kaohsiung Incident” back in 1979. This manuscript focus on New Feminism and the political issue she has long concerned with, which is quite important in the development of both society and politics in Taiwan. The manuscript used to be displayed on a poster by sticking on copying paper with double-side tape, which resulted in deterioration. As a result, it had been did treatment when it was housed in National Museum of Taiwan Literature. The discussion aims at the conservation of object made of toilet paper. Besides coming up with a measure to conserve object made of toilet paper preventive conservation for toilet paper object with the minimal intervention and reversibility, it is also important for us to think how to display this kind of object.