'How ruin can be an art process'

An evening with artist Cornelia Parker in discussion with James Putnam at the British Museum - 20 May 2005, BP Lecture Theatre

To coincide with an International Conservation Conference.

Cornelia Parker - who has worked in consultation with museum conservators - discusses with James Putnam how the process of deterioration can sometimes be used in the creation of a work of art. Also whether artists should be concerned with the further conservation of their work once it is acquired by a museum.

Cornelia Parker lives and works in London and is best known for a number of large scale installations including Cold Dark Matter: An exploded View, 1991 (Tate Gallery) and the exhibition The Maybe ,1995 (Serpentine Gallery). She has also made an ongoing series entitled Avoided Object, working in collaboration with such institutions as HM Customs and Excise,

The Royal Armouries and Madame Tussauds. In 1997 she was awarded a residency at ArtPace, Texas, and was short-listed for the Turner Prize. She had major solo exhibitions in London and New York in 1998. A retrospective of her work was held at the ICA Boston in 2000 and in 2001, the Victoria and Albert Museum commissioned a permanent installation for their British Galleries.