Dear readers,

It is a great pleasure to present the content of number 29 of our journal, Intervención. It comes about in the context of resetting and adjustments to new needs, thoughts, and projections that followed the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. As a result of this and the complexity of the context we live in, we set ourselves the task of providing an up-to-date issue with the questions and reflections that heritage and cultural legacies are facing today.

I can confidently state that both the Escuela Nacional de Conservación, Restauración y Museografía “Manuel del Castillo Negrete” (National School of Conservation, Restoration and Exhibition Design [ENCRyM]), throughout its trajectory in higher education, along with the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National Institute of Anthropology and History [INAH]) of Mexico, have been dedicated to the construction of academic knowledge regarding heritage. Likewise, these institutions have documented the development of ideas and practices surrounding them. In this sense, Intervención has served as a faithful reflection of the trending themes and theoretical-methodological perspectives over time, along with the points of view of professionals regarding their praxis.

Due to the journal’s relevance, I accepted the offer to become its eighth editor, starting with the current issue. The editing process required was not easy, I must admit. Firstly because, although I had participated as an author and reviewer, I had little expe rience on the other side of academic editorial work. Secondly, since time is always short and this is a collaborative effort that cannot be stopped, its integral parts must be well coordinated and engaged for the publication to come out in time and in due form. However, with its rigor and high standards, that applies and deserves.

I have learned a lot throughout the months we were preparing this issue, and what I enjoyed the most was watching the transformation of the texts. Each author starts with an idea, and the editorial team is fully dedicated to polishing and giving them shape, highlighting the most interesting and relevant contributions, and even restructuring the text in case of need. Some of them commented with surprise at how much their initial idea had improved. Here I feel the need to stress the outstanding work done by the journal’s team: Paula Rosales, Yolanda Madrid, the Editorial Committee (CERI), Alejandro Olmedo, the translators, and numerous ot her people whose excellent work makes the road for the editor an enriching experience.

Furthermore, I noticed how invisibilized editorial work is in aca demia, since it does not consider all the processes a text goes through from its submission to its publication. Without the remark able dedication of the entire editorial team at Intervención, this issue would not have been published, nor would the journal have had a history of fifteen years.

I also gained insight into the extensive array of disciplines that the magazine encompasses. From an anthropological perspective, I was unfamiliar with the areas of restoration and conservation. What I noticed while observing this and prior issues was the great weight and space given to the texts dedicated to these subjects; hence, a good number of readers consider it to be a specific conservation and restoration journal, albeit not about museums. We are striving to balance this situation and reposition topics that concern the museal environment with the rigor and contemporality the context deserves. Furthermore, we aim to revert the gender bias we tend to have when writing and strive to use non-sexist language in our editions.

Another aspect I noticed was that papers about conservation and restoration processes were often done from very technical and descriptive notions. I believe this was the greatest challenge we faced in the texts. As mentioned, the objective of this issue is to provide reflections that build professional practices in line with current debates. Therefore, we had to ask our authors for greater theoretical, methodological and introspective reflection vis-à-vis the training and practice of their professions.

We still have a long way to go, yet we continue to insist that the descriptive be the launching pad to delve into analytical perspectives that help expand our ways of understanding heritage and culture. As an editor, I believe the greatest contribution of academic production is: that a text lead us to questions, new ideas, and reveals different ways of working.

With this in mind, we present Intervención issue 29. Beginning with the RESEARCH ARTICLE section, which includes the text Analyzing the Physicochemical Characteristics of an Archaeological Glass Collection from Mexico City, Mexico by José Roberto Pe ralta Rodríguez, Arturo García Bórquez and María de Jesús Alvizar Rodríguez. The aut hors share an exhaustive methodology applied to pieces of historical glass found in said city. It consisted in using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) with X-ray emission and was able to prove the variety of physical and chemical characte ristics the materials contained. Thus, the work shows that applying an efficient methodology can help us reach specific information that widens our understanding of glass production processes in Mexico in the past.

It is followed by the section SHOWCASE, with an outstanding work entitled The Dress Attributed to Empress Charlotte of Mexico (1864-1867): Historical evidences from its restoration. Written by Ana Julia Poncelis Gutiérrez and Karla Castillo Leyva, and Rosa Lorena Román Torres. They describe the restoration process of a woman’s dress from the mid-19^th century, carried out in the Seminar-Workshop Restoration of Textiles in the ENCRyM’s B.A. in Restoration.

In the text, they share how, by studying the historical context of the dress in restoration, they considered it belonged to none other than the Empress consort of Mexico, Maria Charlotte. The description reveals the methodology used in the Seminar, which considers its double function: intervene a piece to improve its state of conservation with previous knowledge of the history of each object.

Next is the section on ACADEMIC REPORT, which comprises four works. The title of the first is Intervention Criteria for the Restoration of the Panel Painting Christ tied to the column from the Museo Diocesano de Arte Sacro in Salamanca, Spain, which was attributed to Luis de Morales. Written by Alejandra del Barrio Luna, Eduardo Azofra Agustín and Tomás Gil Rodrigo, they describe the intervention carried out on that panel painting that is part of the museum’s permanent exhibition.

They studied the authorship of the piece and reported on the restoration criteria used, which included a protocol reconciling research and conservation that was linked to the work’s historical, artistic, and theological value. The most interesting aspect of this work was that it placed the restorers in the position of not only executing techniques, but also as active agents who take decisions that shape the methodologies used in the restoration processes.

The second text in this section bears the title Anoxic Treatment for the Eradication of Insects in the Choir Books of the Museo del Convento de los Descalzos, Lima, Peru, written by Javier Nakamatsu, Jhonatan Arízaga, Ivon Canseco and Patricia Gonzales. It concerns an ori ginal way of adapting a methodology to a regional context. Speci fically, they describe how conditions in Lima foster a prolife ration of insects in colonial choir/choral books; hence they adapted a met hod to combat it.

The enriching aspect of this text is that the authors provide a good example of developing a disinsection strategy that is easily accessible at a low cost. This enables us to imagine and design possible solutions to conserve our heritage that are also viable in the Latin American contexts and situations we work in.

The third text is Exploring the Lighthouse of El Morro de San Felipe: Professional Practice and Academic Collaboration for the Conservation of Immovable Cultural Heritage in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was written by Sarahí Soriano Orozco and Rodrigo Sáinz Lara, who describe the interinstitutional networks and academic collaboration implied in researching this kind of heritage. Specific ally, the text reveals how a detailed study of the lighthouse’s history helps give us an in-depth understanding of its materials and constitutive elements and thus make better decisions for its conservation.

The fourth and final text in the section is called Recent Experiences with the Production of Temporary Exhibitions. Practices, Approaches, and Perspectives on the Collective Work at the Museo del Área Fundacional from Mendoza, Argentina It was written by María del Carmen Marengo, Lorena Puebla and Karina Castañar, who recount how they worked on a cycle of temporary exhibitions held in that museum.

Here they used the research-action-creation perspective and carried out three temporary exhibitions that dialogued from the theoretical point of view with postmodern proposals, such as gender perspective and, specifically, feminist and childhood studies. Fur thermore, the authors let us glimpse how this work route opened a space for new exhibition contents and objectives to flourish, especially those related to highlighting social sectors that are currently absent from this museum’s curatorial narratives. In essence, it is an interesting topic that helps us to rethink and reconfigure the way in which we disseminate and musealize our heritage, as well as the discourses we build around it.

The issue ends with an EXHIBITION REVIEW of The Creation of a Hall Dedicated to the Sami People at the Museo Nacional de las Culturas del Mundo (MNCM), located in Mexico City’s historical center and inaugurated in February 2024. There, Luis Alejandro Mosquera Delgado, author and collaborator of the exhibition, discusses how the Postgraduate Degree in Museal Studies and Practices (PEMP) incorpor ates the creation and realization of exhibition design projects in the teaching process. This becomes a pedagogical practice, where the students situate and develop the theoretical concepts covered in the Degree. This process is described in said review and provides us with a good and informed idea of how exhibition design is currently taught and learned at the ENCRyM.

After the presentation of the texts, it is fascinating to observe the authors’ deliberate efforts towards enhancing the methodology, demonstrating a keen interest in describing their methods, techniques, and protocols. Nonetheless, as I mentioned at the outset, I would like to insist that we try not to leave these descriptions at a purely technical or descriptive level; I believe they are even more enriching when they invite us to delve into our thoughts on how we conceive and approach heritage in the contemporary world.

To end, I can only invite you all to read this issue, number 29, and I sincerely hope that you will enjoy it. I would like to conclude with a phrase mentioned in the editorial presentation of number 26, held on April 11, 2024 with ENCRyM as a venue. At that event, the editor, Ana Lizeth Mata Delgado M.A., said the following: “we are responsible for creating the texts that will accompany future generations”.

That phrase has stayed with me, and I now bring it forth with excitement to wrap up this note. I join Lizeth in her commitment to collaborate in the production of texts we want to read in the future, and these will be those that guide the future specialists in heritage. We are in this adventure, and I am deeply grateful for your com pany herein.