Introduction: Caring for Performance

Can performance be conserved, and if so, how? And what does it mean to conserve performance? Performance works—ephemeral, sensitive to site, embedded in history and often tied to the body of the artist—have long been considered beyond the reach of conservation and restoration, which have traditionally focused on objects, rather than moving bodies. And yet, situating conservation next to performance offers an intriguing point of entry for theoretical and practical investigations. Examined through the lens of conservation, what is performance, and what might it become? What might this new disciplinary lens reveal about performance—and what about conservation? As an evolving practical-theoretical paradigm and a way of theorizing and bringing objects to conscious attention, how does conservation itself change vis-à-vis these new “objects”? Is conservation sustainable, as an imperative, principle and category, or do performative works necessitate distinct modalities of care? Our book begins with these questions. The authors in this volume investigate performance and performance-based artworks (henceforth abbreviated to “performance”) as material and conceptual entities through the lens of conservation.1 Employing diverse disciplinary, professional and personal perspectives, they both set and examine the conditions of possibility for the continuation of performance works.