Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, ON

Cultivating Sustainable Collections: Regenerative and Community Driven Care Practices

September 12 – 13, 2025 | Kingston, ON

In partnership with the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI), Centre for Sustainable Curating (CSC) at Western University, and several Queen’s University departments, AGNES convenes Cultivating Sustainable Collections: Regenerative and Community Driven Care Practices. This two-day summit features an incredible roster of some of the world’s leading thinkers and makers of change to focus on collections’ environmental impact and what we can do about it. Cultivating Sustainable Collections offers space to reflect, connect, and act. Whether you’re a cultural heritage professional, student, artist, collector, researcher or simply someone interested in the future of collections, join us in reimagining care—ethically, collaboratively, and sustainably.

Agnes has been busy building a new kind of museum, both figuratively and literally. Agnes’s new facility, scheduled to open in fall 2026, follows a community-engaged process of reimagining the museum’s operations and is designed around a radically different approach to care—for the artists and non-human kin (aka the collections) who will reside there. With a focus on relationships, Agnes Reimagined includes a live-in residence but also new kinds of architectures that attend to the specificities and world views of Agnes’s diverse collections—so they can live better too! These “living arrangements” prompt questions and conundrums that require collective thinking.

Is it truly possible—or desirable—to preserve collections indefinitely, regardless of cost or consequence? Do artworks and historical documents have natural life cycles of their own? How can we care for collections in ways that ensure they remain whole, meaningful, and accessible—both to their communities of origin and to wider audiences?

Museums, like other cultural heritage institutions with collecting mandates, embody mythologies of endless growth and accumulation. They are expected to continually acquire artifacts and records of human activity and to preserve them permanently—for present and future generations. This paradox defines what cultural heritage organizations are and what professionals working within them have been trying to achieve for centuries. Yet, this very logic now starkly mirrors the existential crisis we face as a society.

How can communities, creators, collectors, conservators, and researchers collaborate to develop sustainable approaches to collections care? How are the scientific assertions informing our care practices changing in the face of climate change?

Four decades ago, in his early warnings about climate change, Carl Sagan poignantly noted that humanity exists as one species among many, sharing this fragile “pale blue dot.” While cultural heritage organizations represent only a small component of broader environmental systems, they serve as critical civic and educational hubs within their communities. As such, they hold significant potential as agents of transformation—particularly when they revise the narratives they curate and the operational structures and value systems through which they operate.

How can Indigenous and community-based knowledge, experience and stewardship be meaningfully integrated into collections care—bridging the divide between scientific practices and Indigenous ways of knowing and being? How do we develop frameworks that support collaboration across different cultural paradigms?

Event Format

Composed of two public panels and two workshops featuring eight Canadian and international guests, the summit features various formats and opportunities for engagement.

Day One – Friday, September 12 | 9am – 4:30pm

Panel 1: Sustainable Practices and Community Involvement in Collections Caring
Free registration / in-person

Featuring:
Ethel Soares (Grêmio Literário e Recreativo Português, Belém do Pará, Brazil)
John Moses (John Moses Authentic Indigenous Advisory Services for Museums and Heritage, Canada)
Emy Kim (Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada)
Marianne Breault (Canadian Conservation Institute, Ottawa, Canada)

Workshop 1: Sustainable Climate Control: Making Informed Risk-Based decisions
A sliding scale of $15-$30 for early bird registration fee / in-person only with limited availability.
Facilitator: Marianne Breault (Canadian Conservation Institute)

Day Two – Saturday, September 13 | 9am – 4:30pm

Panel 2: New Paradigms in Collecting and Caring for Cultural Heritage
Free registration / in-person

Featuring:
Hanna Hölling (Bern University of the Arts, Bern, Switzerland)
Kirsty Robertson (Western University, London, Canada)
Fiona Graham (Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada)
Millard Schisler (John Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA)

Workshop 2: Sustainable acquisition and collecting practices for small and medium collections
A sliding scale of $15-$30 for early bird registration fee / in-person only with limited availability.
Facilitator: Kirsty Robertson (Western University)

Partners and Funders

Cultivating Sustainable Collections: Regenerative and Community Driven Care Practices is organized by AGNES in partnership with the Canadian Conservation Institute; Centre for Sustainable Curating, Western University; and Art History and Art Conservation, Film and Media, Vulnerable Media Lab, and Library, Archives and Special Collections, Queen’s University. Kingston and Area Association of Museums, Art Galleries + Historic Sites, University and College Art Galleries Association of Canada, and Ontario Museum Association (OMA) provided invaluable in-kind support.

The summit is funded in part by the Elizabeth L. Gordon Art Program, a program of the Gordon Foundation and administered by the Ontario Arts Foundation. Hölling’s participation is supported by the Dunning Visitorship, Queen’s University.

For more information and to register, visit Agnes’s website:
Cultivating Sustainable Collections

Please Join Us!

Help shape this event into a lasting, collaborative network of shared sustainability goals for small and medium-sized cultural heritage organizations.

AGNES Etherington Art Centre
AGNES.queensu.ca

Facebook: @aeartcentre
Instagram: @aeartcentre
LinkedIn: @agnes-etherington-art-centre

Media inquiries: Liz Cooper, Communications and Marketing Coordinator at elizabeth.cooper@queensu.ca

Situated within territories of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat, AGNES is a curatorially-driven and research-intensive professional art centre proudly serving a dual mandate as an internationally recognized public art gallery and pedagogical resource at Queen’s. By commissioning, researching, collecting and stewarding works of art, and by exhibiting and interpreting visual culture through an intersectional lens, AGNES creates opportunities for participation and exchange across communities, cultures, histories and geographies.

AGNES is committed to anti-racism. We work to eradicate institutional biases and develop accountable programs that centre artistic expressions and lived experiences of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour. AGNES promotes 2SLGBTQIAP+ positive spaces.

Image credits:
1. Preparing the AGNES collection to move, 2023. Photo: Garrett Elliott
2. Agnes wordmark with heart.