We are delighted to introduce the growing team behind the research project Critical Conservation. Bringing together expertise from heritage preservation, conservation studies, art history, aethetics, critical heritage studies, and environmental humanities, the project explores how conservation practices shape the ways we understand, preserve, and care for art, heritage, and environments today.

At the heart of the project is a shared interest in rethinking conservation as a critical, cultural, and ethical field of knowledge. Our team members contribute diverse perspectives that span contemporary art, archives, environmental heritage, and the histories of conservation beyond the West.

Samidha Pusalkar — Senior Researcher

Samidha Pusalkar is a heritage professional with a PhD in Preservation of Architectural Heritage from the Politecnico di Milano. Her doctoral research examined context-sensitive approaches to conserving living heritage, focusing on socio-religious values and community practices. She holds an MA from the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, a BA from Savitribai Phule Pune University, and a diploma in Built Heritage Studies and Conservation from Mumbai. With over eight years of international experience working with organizations including English Heritage, ICOMOS, and Future for Religious Heritage, her research focuses on intangible values, placemaking, community participation, and heritage policy. At the Bern Academy of the Arts, she studies communities of practice and non-Western expertise in conservation, focusing on South Asia.

Juliana Robles de la Pava — Postdoctoral Fellow

Juliana is a researcher, lecturer, and curator working at the intersection of contemporary art, environmental humanities, and critical heritage studies. She holds a PhD in Theory and History of the Arts from the University of Buenos Aires. Her work draws on posthumanist and neomaterialist theory, science and technology studies, and Latin American art to explore material infrastructures, situated ecologies, and alternative epistemologies. She has received fellowships from CONICET, the Getty Research Institute, and the Max Weber Foundation, and was a fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg inherit. heritage in transformation at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Within Critical Conservation, she researches counter-narratives of conservation in South America, focusing on the Amazon and community-based practices of care beyond extractivist paradigms.

Marcello Rechberger – Project Assistant

Marcello Rechberger studied Art History and Philosophy at the University of Zurich and the Free University of Berlin, and completed a language programme at Saint Petersburg State University. He earned his MA from the University of Zurich with a thesis on the use of Prussian Blue in Thomas Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy (1770). During his studies he worked as a student assistant on several research projects, including the SNSF-funded The Churches of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, 1050–1300. At the Bern Academy of the Arts he serves as Project Assistant for the Critical Conservation project while preparing doctoral research on the relationship between avant-garde art, totalitarianism, and the materiality of pigments.

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Together, the team will work on a series of research activities, including workshops, publications, and public events, while contributing to the broader conversation around expanded and critical approaches to conservation.

We look forward to sharing the project’s progress and welcoming collaborators from across disciplines in the months and years ahead.