Photography and digital image speciality

The workshop receives old and contemporary phototypes, positives and negatives. A new teaching module prepares students for the conservation-restoration of digital media.

Constance Duval is head of the Photography and Digital Image speciality. She is a photography conservator-restorer who graduated from the inp in 2015, and also works as a freelance professional for French and European museum institutions.

Françoise Ploye is an assistant in the Photography and Digital Image speciality. A graduate of Inp in 2001, she is a freelance curator-restorer in Paris. Her studio has three areas of expertise: authentication, preventive conservation and restoration of old and contemporary public and private photographic collections.

Work in workshop

Conservation-restoration is taught first through observation and description exercises (condition assessment), then interpretation (diagnosis, prognosis), followed by the implementation of treatments on objects and documents entrusted to the department by public institutions. Students thus work in a professional context, in relation to the institution and the person responsible for the work.

Thyss, Elsa, "Restauration d'une photographie sur papier albuminé. Dossier de traitement"

Ledamoisel, Stéphanie, "Restauration d'un ambrotype, "portrait de deux femmes assises", collection Roger-Viollet"

From left to right:

Thyss, Elsa, "Restauration d'une photographie sur papier albuminé. Dossier de traitement", Médiathèque numérique de l'Inp, https://mediatheque-numerique.inp.fr/documentation-oeuvres/rapports-res…

Ledamoisel, Stéphanie, "Restauration d'un ambrotype, "portrait de deux femmes assises", collection Roger-Viollet", Médiathèque numérique de l'Inp, consulté le 26 juillet 2023, https://mediatheque-numerique.inp.fr/documentation-oeuvres/rapports-res…

Internships and field-schools

During their 3rd year, student conservators-restorers have a 3-month internship in France at a public institution, a regional or local studio, a service with national competence or with an independent restorer. In their 4th year, they add to their professional experience with a 22-week practical internship in an institutional or private restoration studio abroad.

This is an opportunity for them to put their knowledge into practice, to acquire new skills and build a professional network while discovering other methods and considerations.

At the same time, the students attend field-schools.

From their first year of training, students in conservation-restoration participate in preventive conservation projects. Over the next four years, they interact in field-schools in France and abroad thus giving them a first hands-on experience under the supervision of the coordinators of each of the specialties.

This unique pedagogical approach received the EU Cultural Heritage Prize / Europa Nostra Award in 2018.

Since 1991, the Institut national du patrimoine has held 233 field schools in France and abroad, at major institutions such as the Louvre, the Sorbonne and the Petit Palais, as well as in the provinces, such as in Lourdes, Dijon and Strasbourg, and outside France, in the Lebanon, Italy, Senegal, Albania, India and China.

Master's thesis

The fifth year is the degree year, during which the student is placed in a professional situation and manages a conservation-restoration project independently under the guidance of a thesis director, the head of the workshop, their assistant or an external advisor.