As part of the “Documentation of Contemporary Art” research
project, several installations by Francisco Tropa (b. 1968, Lisbon)
were studied. These installations were, at first, part of three different
projects initiated by the artist, and later become autonomous and
dispersed into several different collections. This paper addresses
the documentation process of these installations, regarding both its
challenges and the applied preservation methodologies.
Tropa’s works are meant to change as part of a living process, creating
different trajectories. According to the artist, artworks from the same
project establish tangible and intangible relationships among them.
The documentation process of such a variable and interconnected
œuvre presented unpredictable challenges, which ultimately acted as a
catalyst to analyze the documentation process itself.
As a result of this analysis, new theoretical frameworks are
proposed and the role of the conservator is reflected upon
regarding the ways it affects the preservation of variable and
interconnected artworks
