During the International Council of Museums 21st Triennial Conference (ICOM-CC )* in Oslo, September 14-18, we will be presenting a poster within the session of the Working Group of Murals, Stone, and Rock Art titled Dust to dust: Consolidating soot in an old industrial building.
We are honoured to have been selected to contribute to this conference by sharing our experience from an in-situ testing for consolidating of soot and heavy metal dust in the historic steam hammer in Österbybruk, in the Dannemora mining region of central Sweden. This project is a collaboration between Disent and Rosmarus Enviro, Sweden. The poster is co-authored by Anna Henningsson (Disent) and Patrik Nisson (Rosmarus Enviro).
Under normal conditions, elevated soot and heavy metal dust concentrations would require removal to meet hygienic standards. However, we have taken a different approach and acknowledge this soot and dust as a historic asset in its own right, thus meriting preservation. and applied a method for ’freezing’. With this in mind, various methods for ’freezing’ (immobilising) the soot-stained walls in their current state were tested.
Cite this article: Henningsson, A. and P. Nilsson. 2026.Dust to dust: Consolidating soot in an old industrial building. In Cultural Connections in Conservation. ICOM-CC 21st Triennial Conference Preprints, Oslo, 14–18 September 2026, ed. J. Bridgland. Paris: International Council of Museums.Poster abstract.
* ICOM-CC is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation with around 5,000 members worldwide from all areas of the museum and conservation professions. Its aim is to promote the conservation of culturally and historically significant works, and to promote the goals of the conservation profession. ICOM-CC is made up of specialist working groups which communicate with their members through newsletters, meetings, and the Triennial Congress.