Curran, Katherine; Langfeldt, Jannicke; Moore, Abby; Gili, Argyro; King, Rose; Rijavec, Tjasa; Strlic, Matija; (2022) Preserving Protest inflatables: Will the Trump Baby Blimp last forever? In: FUTURE TALKS. A conference by the Conservation Department. Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum

Text Curran_Preserving Protest inflatables_AAM.pdf Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 28 November 2024. Download (201kB)

Abstract

This paper discusses the long-term conservation, display and storage of a 6 m x 3 m inflatable Baby Trump blimp. The blimp was flown during the 2018 anti-Trump demonstrations in Parliament Square, London, and came to the Museum of London in 2020. It is made from PVC and was ‘flown’ by filling it with helium. Conserving, displaying and storing Baby Trump poses complex technical and ethical challenges. Its long-term preservation depends on how stable the polymer and plasticiser are, and how the object is stored. To better understand the PVC material and how storage and display conditions influence its degradation, heritage scientists from UCL’s Institute for Sustainable Heritage and the University of Ljubljana analysed samples of the plastic, and modelled its plasticiser loss. The scientific investigations revealed that temporary display of the blimp in a ventilated environment is unlikely to result in significant plasticiser loss, therefore posing little risk to the object. Similarly, if stored in a closed environment with little air between the folded layers, the blimp is unlikely to experience any plasticiser loss. These results have allowed conservators to make informed decisions regarding the long-term storage of the blimp, and better understand the risk to the material resulting from display.

Download activity - last month

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as JSONXMLCSV

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as JSONXMLCSV

Archive Staff Only

View Item