SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
International Conference

SPark: Conservation of sculpture parks

Short biographies

CLAUDIA BORTOLUSSI is co-founder and R&D manager of Siltea srl, an Italian

university spin-off company dedicated to technical support to restoration and
nanostructured coatings for surfaces protection. She completed the PhD in Study and
preservation of Archaeological and Architectural Heritage focused on dosimetric
dating methods in 2013 at the University of Padua (Italy). She has a degree in
Science and technology for archaeological and artistic heritage. A substantial portion
of her work has involved researching and teaching on chemistry applied to cultural
heritage. She was co-supervisor of the thesis in restoration The eternal youth of the
monsters of Capalbio. A planned and preventive conservation program (S.Vella,
University of Urbino, Italy). Claudia is responsible for networking activities for Siltea,
as for example by participating to Meditares-Algeria, program promoted by Consorzio
CSP for the internationalization of enterprises working in the field of Cultural
Heritage. She is involved in the Scientific Committee of the conference
Nanotechnology and restoration organized by Fondazione Villa Fabris- European
Centre for Heritage Crafts and Professions which will take place in October 2014 in
Italy.
MIRTA PAVIC has been working in the Conservation Department of the Museum of
Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia, from 2001, and was appointed department
head last year. She has Master of Arts degree in conservation from the University of
Ljubljana, Academy of Fine Arts and Design. Mirta is also teaching a course on
modern and contemporary art conservation at the Arts Academy of the University of
Split, Croatia. She started her professional path in the Croatian Conservation
Institute in Zagreb but as her preferred field was contemporary art and new
materials, she continued her career in the Museum of Contemporary Art. In an
endeavor to introduce conservation efforts to the public, she produced a
documentary that has been airing on the Croatian national television.
RACHEL RIVENC was trained in France as a painting conservator and holds a
masters in paintings conservation from Paris I- Sorbonne. After graduating she
carried out internships at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid
and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal. She was a conservator in
private practice and taught paintings conservation at the University of Malta for
several years before coming to the Getty Conservation Institute, first as a graduate
intern in 2006, and in 2007 as a part of the Modern and Contemporary Art Research
Initiative. In this role she studies the diverse materials and techniques used by
Contemporary Artists, especially paints and plastics, their identification, deterioration
and conservation. She recently completed her PhD on "Made in LA: Materials,
Processes and the Birth of West Coast Minimalism" with the Universite de Versailles



Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. She is currently leading two projects, Outdoor Sculpture,
researching the challenging conservation issues associated with this type of objects
and especially the question of painted surfaces; and Art in LA, a project studying the
materials and processes used by LA based artists from the 1950s onward. She has
also been assistant coordinator for the Modern Materials and Contemporary Art
working group of ICOM-CC for the past six years.
SAGITA MIRJAM SUNARA has a degree in conservation from the Arts Academy of
the University of Split, Croatia, and is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of
Philosophy in Zagreb. She works as an Assistant Professor at the Arts Academy in
Split, where she teaches easel painting and polychrome wood conservation,
preventive conservation and methods of research and documentation in
conservation. She formerly worked as a documentalist at the Section for Stone
Sculpture of the Croatian Conservation Institute Department in Split, and was
involved in the conservation of the Peristyle of Diocletian's Palace. Sagita has a
strong passion for advocacy and public outreach, and a growing interest in
conservation of contemporary art. She conducts artist interviews, organizes
conservation-related public lectures and professional workshops. She was one of the
organizers of the international conference "Our Modern: Re-Appropriating Vulnerable
20th Century".
ANDREW THORN is a conservator working in Australia and other countries and
manages the preservation of numerous outdoor collections and objects. He is
currently co-ordinator of the Murals Stone and Rock Art Working Groupof ICOM-CC,
in which capacity he has recently organized a conference on mural paintings and
sculpture in Leh, Laddakh. His duties include soliciting and editing papers for the
ICOM's regular triennial conferences. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of
IIC's Studies in Conservation.
FRIEDERIKE WAENTIG is a professor for the Conservation of Wooden Artifacts
and Modern Materials at the University of Applied Sciences Cologne. Beside working
as a freelance conservator she was previously: Senior Conservator at the Art and
Exhibition Hall,Bonn; Conservator at the Conservation Center Dsseldorf;
Conservator at the Museum for Appied Art Cologne. She obtained her degree at the
Otto-Friedrich-University of Bamberg majoring in Heritage Preservation, with minor
studies in folklore and building history. Her Ph.D. thesis was entitled Synthetic
Materials in Art: research from the conservation point of view. Her Masters thesis in
Heritage Preservation, Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg, was Technical and
Industrial Monuments Definition, History and Preservation and her Masters degree
from the University of Applied Sciences Cologne, was on Conservation specializing in
Wooden Artifacts. She spent a practical semester in East-Berlin (former GDR) at the
Museum for Applied Art Berlin. Her focus in research is on the preservation of
modern materials in art, design and architecture.