Bakom kulisserna En fallstudie av Svenska Filminstitutets kostym-samling, dess bevarande och tillgänglighet

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the preservation and accessibility of the cinematic collections managed by the Swedish Film Institute. The focus will be on their collection of costumes, rather than the rolls of film and other archival material. This focus has been chosen mainly because a lot already has been written about the preservation of celluloid, and its preservation seems to engage more people. Instead, the thesis will highlight a cinematic collection that generally is given little space in the preservation debate, and apparently is not mentioned on the Swedish Film Institute’s digital channels. The investigation was carried out by visiting the collection on site. A qualitative investigation (in which condition assessments were made on a group of costumes to be able to give specific recommendations) as well as a quantitative investigation (to statistically show the most common types of damages, the good/bad condition ratio etc.) was carried out. On-site measurements of temperature and relative hu-midity was taken, and tests were done on the costumes packing materials to see if they emitted harmful gases. A survey was sent out to the public, to see their thoughts on cinematic collections. The collected information showed that changes need to be done in order to en-sure the preservation of the Film Institute’s costume collection. The investigations for example showed that better packing, as well as padding, was needed, seeing as a large amount of the examined costumes showed signs of stress due to creases. With the help of the results, recommendations were given on how to pack and pad the costumes better as well as giving recommendations on how to change the climate for the better. Recommendations were also given on how to increase the accessibility.