AIC's 46th Annual Meeting

In developing countries, where in general museums and private art collectors do not have facilities of climate control system for their art heritage collection, they keep collections either in storage or in display galleries to face surrounding climate and get acclimatize for years. The Western part of India comes under thousands of miles of Thar Desert and it is dotted with several large and small museums including family museums and art heritage galleries with highly valuable and rare heritage collection. Dry climatic conditions in this region have been a major advantage for art heritage as it slows down deterioration process and minimizes biological activities; as a result, precious art heritage including sensitive paper objects survived for so many years even without climate control system. But for the last several decades, weather in this region is changing very fast and the Thar Desert is drifting away from its dry climatic characteristics and becoming wetter year by year, raising concern for all walks of life, including art heritage collections. Every year regular increase in rainfall is pumping excess moisture in air and soil and creating favorable condition for more biological activity and art material deterioration. In this alarming situation of climate change, all respective museums and art collectors need to pay attention and go through fresh collection management strategy and create an action plan to cope with this lethal change and save precious heritage for the next generations.