Laure Cadot

Laure Cadot (France, 1980) is a conservator-restorer specialising in the treatment of organic materials and human remains in particular. A graduate in art history, museology and applied research from the École du Louvre and in conservation-restoration and preventive conservation (University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), she has been working independently for fifteen years with the French and European public collections. Her research on the status and conservation of collections of human remains has led her to work on these little-addressed questions within the archaeology and ethnography department of the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France as a project manager, and to publish regularly on the subject in specialised journals and books.

As an extension of her research and professional practice, Laure Cadot’s residency at the French Academy in Rome aims to gather and lay the methodological foundations of a field with multiple ramifications and complex issues. In parallel with bibliographical research, meetings and interviews with various Italian figures involved with these particular collections (curators, restorers, anthropologists, archaeologists, etc.) will enable a comparison between the French and Italian approaches in order to define the common features and particularities of this field, which has been evolving rapidly since the beginning of the 2000s, in particular through the issues of restitution and respect for the human body in cultural institutions. The aim of this work will be to propose practical guidelines adapted to the sensitivities and singularities of each typology according to their materiality, provenance, dating, preparation technique, heritage history, etc., as well as to their scientific uses for a better handling of this fragile and in many ways precious heritage.

 

Photo portrait © Daniele Molajoli
Video portrait © Laurent Perreau pour l’Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis