Savoy, NicoleNicoleSavoy2025-12-182025-12-182025-12-10https://doi.org/10.24451/arbor.12547https://arbor.bfh.ch/handle/arbor/46129This is a review of two volumes of Performance: The Ethics and the Politics of Conservation and Care, published in 2023 (Vol.1) and 2025 (Vol.2) from Routledge, and resulting from the project Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge (SNSF 2020-25).Nicole Savoy’s review presents Performance: The Ethics and the Politics of Conservation and Care (Vols. 1–2) as a landmark contribution to the emerging field of performance conservation. Edited by Hanna B. Hölling, Jules Pelta Feldman, and Emilie Magnin, the volumes stem from the Swiss-funded research project Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge and address the longstanding lack of theoretical and practical frameworks for conserving performance. Structured into three thematic sections per volume, the books explore care ethics, institutional politics, and embodied practice, while expanding methodological approaches to longevity, stewardship, and documentation. Savoy highlights recurring concepts such as post-anthropocentrism, non-linearity, and relational objecthood, which challenge traditional, object-centred conservation models. Through case studies ranging from Ukeles’s Maintenance Art to the Kongo Astronauts, the review shows how performance itself can function as cultural critique and conservation practice. Rather than offering prescriptive guidelines, the volumes advocate an expanded ethics of care grounded in collaboration, community, and situated knowledge.enAarticle