Save Outdoor Sculpture, Heritage Preservation
Overview
Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!) helps communities across the United States preserve and promote their sculpture.Contact Information
1012 14th Street NWWashington, District Of Columbia 20005
United States
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Description
Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!) helps communities across the United States preserve and promote their sculpture. SOS! began in 1989 by involving 7,000 volunteers and state and local organizations to catalog and assess 30,000 publicly accessible outdoor sculptures. Of that total, 54 percent were determined to be in critical or urgent need of conservation to survive. The data is accessible via the Inventory of American Sculpture database at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Since then, SOS! has been an advocate for the proper care of this often-neglected public resource. Citizens are working to preserve sculptures and monuments across the United States, and SOS! helps them by providing resources to spark local action. SOS! encourages a multi-faceted approach to preservation: assessment, conservation treatment, public awareness, education, and long-term maintenance. This approach helps increase appreciation and care of public sculpture in both the short and long term, and involving professional conservators throughout the process ensures proper care of the sculpture.