CONSERVATION LAB

Get an up-close look at musical conservation.

In the Conservation Lab, MIM’s team helps maintain the museum’s diverse collection. MIM conserves instruments and music-related artifacts to ensure their structural integrity and preservation for future generations. Through a large viewing window, guests can see the process of conservation, from cleaning and examining instruments to restoration, repair, and documentation.

Conservation work includes careful testing and documentation of various methods for stabilizing, preserving, and restoring objects made of a wide variety of materials, including wood, metal, bone, hide, and plastic. This research is significant for the broader field of museum conservation and helps to inform the treatment of ethnographic and anthropological collections in museums around the world.

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Inside the Conservation Lab

Students on a visit to MIM watch as conservator Rodrigo Correa-Salas repairs a lyre in the Conservation Lab.

Sukanya Shankar, the wife of Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar, assembles a performance outfit worn by her husband in his famous Concert for Bangladesh. The outfit, loaned to MIM, is on display in the Artist Gallery.

Guests visit the lab to see conservation projects up close during a “VIP” Tour.

MIM’s team carefully restored and crafted custom mounts for towering slit drums from Vanuatu, now on display in the Oceania Gallery.

Curator Daniel Piper examines a new acquisition before its installation in the Latin America Gallery. This bombo legüero was played by Victor “Cocho” Zambrano of Los Chalchaleros.

Your support helps MIM preserve instruments which might otherwise be lost to history.

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Musical History Under a Microscope

MIM’s conservation team conducted laboratory tests on two instruments, an Andean panpipe and a wooden rattle from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to learn more details about their pasts.
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Watch: Conserving Oversized Instruments

Hanging from the ceiling in MIM’s Orientation Gallery are some of the museum’s largest instruments, ranging from six to eleven feet tall. See how the conservation team cares for this collection.

Watch: Native Alaskan Frame Drum Restoration