50 objects spanning 5,000 years are on display at this new exhibition in Mumbai

Everything you see in this room here says Anupam Sah is trying to return to the earth We are surrounded by clay metal and cloth objects mdash some at least a few millennia old Be it an electronic computer part or a piece of synthetic cloth mdasheverything is trying to return to a stable elemental form And our job is to stop that says Sah Head of Art Conservation Research and Training at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya CSMVSAt the museums conversation workshop there is a strong recall of an operation theatre or a chemistry lab mdash there are conservators in white coats at each table and studio lights glaring down at them Sah who has been an art conservator for the last 25 years splits his time across each section He calls his job an amalgam of science and art tempered with informed human decisionsAs we sip our coffees on the corridor of the museum food items are not allowed inside the workshop Sah often evokes medical terminology mdash a diagnosis of an artwork is followed by an analysis and chemicals are tested for sideeffects But whether they are scrubbing a Chola bronze with cotton buds or scanning an 18th century chintz prayer mat with infrared rays the conservators rule is only one be invisible While conservation is about skills and knowledge the conservator has to disappear into anonymity says SahWhich is why the CSMVS upcoming exhibition is an unusual one For a change the exhibition curated by Sah will have the conservator at the heart of the show 50 objects spanning a period of 5000 years will narrate more than just their stories and go on to explain how they stood the test of time Will this exhibition demystify the practice of art conservation perhaps reveal the trick a little too much Sah will tell you that the exhibition is more than thatArt conservation is philosophical Why did we choose to treat an object in a certain way Why have we decided to leave the green patina on some bronzes for example or how did we conserve a Harappan storage jar Conserving the Collection The caring path for 5000 years of art opens on September 3 in the Premchand Roychand Gallery CSMVS Visitors will get to see these 50 iconic objects mdash almost 80 per cent of which havent been exhibited till date mdash till November 1 2016 and understand through them the nuances of art conservationSilk for the frailNidhi Shah projects coordinator turns on an LCD backlighting table on which is placed a 1750 CE Jambudweepa the Jain view of the world with Mount Meru at the centre of the island continent Several bits have been eaten away by the ravages of time and the holes speak for themselvesIt is different if you are restoring a textile work for your home or to keep in the drawing room But in a museum the historical integrity of an object is important says Shah indicating a thin film of crepeline mdash almost invisible to the naked eye mdash that her colleague Prajakta Jadhav textile conservator uses to hold the painting togetherLaser surgery for the BuddhaIn the middle of our conversation Sah suddenly pauses and remarks Hear that sound From behind a translucent screen comes the steady sound of a pulse and Sah takes us around Conservators Dilip Mestry and Aishwarya Bhattacharjee are at work on a 5th century stucco Buddha from the Gandhara region He has been cleaned up in patches with a fine laser beamThe instrument we use for this is the latest in art conservation It is worth noting that while professions like fashion technology have advanced so much art conservation is still lagging behind And to think that museums have been around longer says Sah With every flash of the laser beam centuries of dirt come away Is it possible to turn back time entirely Yes but we should allow the character of time to exist on these works Remember that the laser beam is only an instrument how we use it is more the point he says Done as patchwork there is a clear beforeandafter effect on the artefactUndoing old repairsConserving the Collection begins around 25001900 BCE mdash nearly 5000 years ago mdash with a Harappan storage jar It was used to store grain but can easily accommodate a grown person as well The jar is reconstructed from seven parts but first conservator Nikhil Ramesh had to undo an earlier haphazard conservationNow a new finer filling holds the shards of the jar together and the new repairs are easily distinguishable from the old to let history speak for itself A gaping crack is left at the bottom of the jar In a case of newage technology meeting the ancient this crack will be fitted with a 3Dprinted pieceSah points to a little row of grooves around the centre of the pot In the making of such a huge jar it is possible that the fresh clay would flop when it was shaped There were strings that were wound around the pot in order for it to hold its shape which remained once the pot was bakedThe funk in the edictAn Ashokan edict unearthed in Nala Sopara and written in the Brahmi script is one of the 14 major edicts in India While its a pity that it split into two during transportation from the site it is now held together by an iron ring If you thought that was conservation theres more to it explains conservator Rajesh Poojari also an archaeologistThe edict was stored in the museums repository and accumulated a lot of dirt and cement over the years While most people think it is easy to wash a stone surface it is difficult to do so when it has carvings on them he says As we shudder imagining how grime can settle into the carved words Devanampriya Priyadarsin Rajah during washing Poojari says that a lot of attention has been paid to each letter using a special organic solventIncompatible with the originalA far cry from the Harappan jar the exhibition ends with a painting made in 1962 by one of Modernist VS Gaitonde Sah says that a lot depends on the kind of materials chosen by the artist In the past artists thought a lot about the paints and canvases they used Works made then dont degrade as quickly as some works made by younger artists now he saysOn this untitled Gaitonde work conservator Omkar Kadu applies a filler to repair minor losses in the blue canvas The fillers neutral tone neither stands out nor blends in After all you cannot paint over a masterpiece And the filler can simply be removed since it is of a different nature than the original materials used in the paintingIs it easier to restore a Gaitonde than a Harappan jar Well not really Two things says Sah in Mumbai that are a problem for paintings are the weak quality of commercial mounting and framing materials and the low AC temperatures that people use in their homes These can damage a painting irreversibly Overall while a Modernist masterpiece might need lesser intervention than a terracotta storage jar Sah vouches that the conservator has no favourites