Hepzibah Institute of Heritage Conservation

I attended a training workshop at Hepzibah Institute in Chennai from 2-7 March 2015. Though it was a training on the conversation of paintings, I learned some tips on conserving manuscripts as well. The course was conducted by Dr. V. Jeyaraj who himself is the director of the Institute. He is a big name in India as well as overseas in relation to Indian paintings and arts.

The workshop was very dynamic and full of hands on exercises on real antique paintings of every medium such as canvas, paper, leather, rock, palm leaf, etc. A lot of restoring techniques were tought and I were such fortunate to be in this class.

I could relate what I learnt from the codicology course which I took in 2012 in Cambridge University with this conservation workshop.
I get to know some of the chemicals used to restore manuscripts and paintings and had the opportunity to handle them for restoring.
We went to few places of interest such as museums, chemical laboratory, Institute of arts, historical buildings and gallery.My course mates who were from different career and academic backgrounds were so friendly and it took me no time to feel as if we were a family.
At the end of the course I submitted a dissertation with title, " The Care and Maintenance of Manuscripts & Paintings on Palm Leaf in India". Once I received the grade, Insyallah I will post it in this blog.
Even though the workshop doesn't make me an expert, but at least I know some basics in dealing and restoring my manuscripts.