Vandalism of Cultural Heritage: Thoughts Preceding Conservation Interventions

Vandalism constitutes a continuous phenomenon throughout history. It can be described as an interaction between people and their material environment. Because of its nature, it captures the interest of material culture’s scholar. In this paper, several sociopolitical and aesthetic aspects of the phenomenon are examined from the conservator’s point of view. The sociopolitical background of the act, the role of established and dominant social values, and the role of the single person or of a minority are among them. It is argued that these sociopolitical dimensions of the topic that initially might seem irrelevant with conservation practice constitute the actual foundation upon which conservation of cultural heritage is based. The conscious conservator has to be aware of this complicated web of contradicted values and significances when standing in front of a vandalized object. Thus, the conservation decision making turns out to be a rather human-centric rather than an object-oriented approach.