Restoring Mémoria e Arte Manuscripts

Brazil

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related crisis, Memória e Arte suffered from a lack of income, personnel, and equipment. They had to let go of trained and reliable employees. Also, the Director of the organization is the only restorer specialized in the preservation of historical documents handwritten in black ink in Salvador. She is asked to treat the collections of several institutions, but they are not able to pay for this due to the crisis. The condition of the paper of these collections is of advanced degradation. Though this project, the organization was able to continue restoring, digitizing, and transcribing 18th and 19th centuries manuscripts on the history of Bahia. The project helped to maintain the staff, invest in proper equipment, and a continuation of the restoration and treatment activities of valuable paper collections.