Nov 19 2007
Saving the Textile Conservation Centre - a Winchester centre of excellence
From Martin Tod’s blog
One local story that hasn’t received the national coverage that it deserves is the University of Southampton’s plan to close the world-renowned Textile Conservation Centre at the Winchester School of Art.
The Textile Conservation Centre is not just a centre of excellence. It is the worldwide centre of excellence in textile conservation research, education and practice. The majority of trained textile conservators around the world studied at TCC.
Amongst other things, they’ve saved pirate flags, Nelson’s sails, the elephant man’s hat, Marlene Dietrich’s dresses and Freddy Mercury’s trousers.
A petition against the closure has been launched on the Number 10 website and has already been backed by more than 1,500 people. Please sign it if you can.
Southampton is treating the TCC as a “profit centre” - and because it’s not “profitable” - and they, rightly, don’t want to compromise on excellence, they say they are forced to close it. (It’s proving hard for campaigners to get the figures to check this).
Read the rest of the article here
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