Giza, Egypt – March 14, 2010
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) holds a Workshop on Photographic Documentation for the conservators of the Grand Egyptian Museum Conservation Center (GEM-CC) from 14th – 25th March. In the two week long workshop, two Japanese experts in conservation and a professional artifact photographer provide lectures on functions of camera and the peripheral equipment, lighting and image processing at the Conservation Center, which is to be officially open in the near future. The workshop participants also have practical training on photographic documentation using real artifacts in the Saqqara storeroom. The opening ceremony is to be held at 9:00 am at the Grand Egyptian Museum Conservation Center with attendance of Mr. Kaoru Ishikawa, the Ambassador of Japan to Egypt.
The training course is conducted as a part of the technical cooperation project of JICA in partnership with Egyptian Ministry of Culture, namely, the Grand Egyptian Museum Conservation Center Project. Japan has been supporting capacity development of the conservators of the Grand Egyptian Museum for the last two years, in addition to a provision of a loan of 35 billion yen for the construction of the Grand Egyptian Museum. So far, JICA has conducted the workshops on conservation of various materials such as paper, textile and metal in Egypt, and several Egyptian conservators have been to Japan for longer term training.
JICA plans to expand its cooperation to a comprehensive capacity development program of GEM-CC conservators once the Egyptian Government completes recruitment and staffing of the GEM-CC conservators. The comprehensive program intends to cover the skills required for conservators during the whole process from receiving artifacts till displaying them. Photographic documentation skill is important for museum works, especially, in inventory creation, research, record of conservation work and description of artifacts. The GEM conservators are expected to use the skills acquired through the workshop to start documentation of the artifacts transferred to GEM-CC.