THE PLEURAL SYSTEM

Hello. I am Salvador Muñoz Viñas, a paper conservator and paper conservation teacher working at the Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain. Along the years I have worked in paper conservation and conservation theory: I enjoy both reading Plato and cooking starch, so to speak. In the cooking-starch (or in the practical, hands-on side of things, if you so prefer), I have had the chance to try and develop several conservation techniques. (One of the perks of working within a university is that I can do that kind of thing with relative ease). One of the things that has proved more useful in this sense –no, not merely useful: very useful, and exciting– is a tool which we call the pleural system. It is a new tool that makes flattening and lining of paper artifacts so much easier, safer and convenient. It is not the typical fancy conservation gizmo that in the end gets tucked somewhere in a corner of the workshop and which is so rarely used. In fact, it has become a most used tool in our workshop. We have built this website in order to help making it known among other fellow practicing paper conservators. If you are one of us, you will surely find this interesting.