Artist, Nina Katchadourian: Hello, I'm Nina Katchadourian. I'm an artist, and MoMA invited me to develop a project with the Department of Education. This allowed me access to people in parts of the museum I'd never gotten to visit before.
Early one morning, I went dusting with conservator Ellen Moody in the museum galleries. Every week, Ellen checks on certain artworks that tend to get dustier or dirtier faster than others. She talked to me as I watched while she dusted several Brancusi sculptures.
Conservator, Ellen Moody: We're standing at the Brancusi platform. Because it's low to the ground, the platform itself often collects dust, and that can be quite marring because the platform is white. So dust shows up very quickly. So my job is just to dust the sculptures that are on the platform.
So to do that, I take off my shoes. We have little Tyvek booties we wear, so that we don't leave footprints on the platform.
Nina Katchadourian: It was weird to see Ellen trespass the invisible barrier that separates us from artworks in a museum. She stood there in her socks as if she were at home, dusting these iconic sculptures.
Ellen Moody: I like to use the boar's head brush that has very long, soft fibers that won't get caught in any little splinters. And then My lamb's wool duster, I'll just keep nearby so that it can capture what's coming off of the object. We're about to hit maximum capacity on my duster as you can see. It's pretty covered with dust bunnies now and it's usually a sign that it's time to stop.