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National and International Projects
YES (Disclosing Lost yellows: Science and Art for a Sustainable Preservation of Natural Yellows in Cultural Heritage) will focus on the identification and state of degradation of yellow colors in heritage objects, providing critical information about the artists' aesthetic perspective, conceptions and choices, and how the artwork has changed over time. YES will tackle this challenging goal by merging state-of-the art analytical instruments and historically accurate reconstructions of yellow colors. YES is supported by an wide network, reuniting experts on the history of textiles, science and technology, medieval illuminated manuscripts, as well as chemists and conservation scientists.
This project is to be developed within the framework of a CEEC contract (2022-2028). The CEEC Individual Call, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, is aimed at PhD holders of any nationality or stateless with a background in any scientific area who wish to develop their scientific research or technological development activity in Portugal.
Funding: Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology
REVIVE The threads of the past weaving the future: the colors from the Royal Textile Factory of Covilhã, 1764-1850 will do a systematic analysis of the available sources dispersed in various archives and public libraries related to the Covilhã manufacture. It will seek to clarify the production and dyeing processes used in the factory, in a historical period that allows us to follow the evolution from the manufacturing to the industrial phase. REVIVE aims at identifying the technological innovations with the aim of optimizing and inserting them in a contemporary context. This will be accomplished by the following plan: 1) An in-depth study of the archives and documentary sources dispersed by various institutions; 2) Mapping of external influences and resources; 3) Interpretation and historical reconstruction of textile and dyeing formulations; 4) Application of the historical formulations in design & architecture.
Finally, REVIVE intends to create an exhibition of design, promoting the use of wool dyed with the formulations discovered, in partnership with TrendBurel and UBI. This will pave way for the development of a sustainable textile design, aware of the cultural and historical significance of this craft.
Funding: Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology
COST Action CA 19131 Europe through Textiles: Network for an integrated and interdisciplinary Humanities (EuroWeb) aims at formulating a new vision of European history based on textiles: their massive production, trade, symbolic meanings, consumption, and reuse. It fosters a pan-European network of scholars and stakeholders from academia, museums, conservation, cultural and creative industries. Scholars from several disciplines of the Humanities (philology, art history, archaeology, history), Social Sciences (social anthropology, ethnology, economics, law) and Natural Sciences (geochemistry, conservation, chemistry, biology) join forces with craftspeople and designers to bridge current cultural, political, and geographical gaps and facilitate interdisciplinary research leading to inspirational material for the applied disciplines of fashion, art and design.
Funding: Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union
Illuminated in word and in image, medieval manuscripts are some of the most beautiful testimonies of our European past and may be at risk. Chemistry will provide the fundamental knowledge to characterize the molecular structures that give substance to the writing inks and yellow paints, used in the medieval codex. In turn, accurate structures for iron gall inks will promote informed conservation strategies, filling the existing gap between scientific research and its application. Funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Polyphenols in Art is a research project which will lead to a better understanding of the materials used in many of our precious works of art and will promote advances in polyphenolic research. In the end, we want the community to appropriate this knowledge and to feel as though these works belong to them. In this way, we can assure sustainable preservation of our common European heritage.
Funding: Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology
Funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Stemma is a research project whose goal is to carry out a multidisciplinary investigation on the Galician-Portuguese troubadours’ manuscripts. The written surviving testimonies of Galician-Portuguese medieval lyric are no more than five. The historical and cultural importance of their legacy (the troubadours songs) is in sharp contrast with the gaps that still remain in regard of almost every aspect of the production, path and owners of these manuscripts. Through an innovative and multidisciplinary approach, which includes molecular analyzes of the miniatures and writing inks, as well as internal analyzes of all testimonies and systematic searches in archives and libraries (particularly focused on the figures of Angelo Colocci and D. Miguel da Silva , bishop of Viseu), the aim of this project is therefore to fill those gaps.
Funding: Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology