Monitoring and documenting the state of conservation in the context of a spread heritage: the case of Painted Villages in an interdisciplinary perspective

Outdoor contemporary mural paintings are increasingly relevant in public art, both in urban areas and in smaller communities. This last context is relevant in Italy because of the presence of the so-called Painted Villages, which are spread across the country. The artworks in these villages have cultural value and potential economic significance for tourism. Despite their importance, these artworks are often excluded from official heritage protection frameworks, which can lead to unsupervised conservation practices performed without adequate technical knowledge or documentation, made even more difficult by the often-limited funding availability. From these considerations, we propose a new method to support municipalities and communities in managing and caring for this vast cultural heritage. The method relies on on-site visual surveys performed by trained personnel, who maps the visible degradation forms on a grid overlaid on the image of the painting. The degradation types to be recorded are defined in a dedicated glossary developed specifically for the monitoring activity. The results consist of values between 0 and 1 for each degradation form and a global Degradation Index representing the overall conservation condition of the artwork. The main benefits of the proposed method are that it enables municipalities and communities to monitor the conservation status and durability of interventions on artworks in an accessible and participatory way. This empowers them to prioritize conservation efforts, increases their awareness and engagement with their heritage, and provides a clear system to track changes in the paintings over time. So far, the method has been tested on 52 artworks located in three Painted Villages in northern Italy. The resulting Degradation Indexes have been correlated with key factors related to the artworks and their environmental context. Preliminary results reveal recurring degradation forms, which can be grouped into four main categories. As expected, the level of exposure plays a major role in the state of conservation of the murals, while painting techniques significantly influence the occurrence of specific degradation patterns. The proposed classification simplifies data collection and makes the method feasible even for non-expert users. Therefore, starting from a participatory, community-based system, the collection of a substantial amount of data enables experts to assess the factors that most strongly influence the conservation of contemporary outdoor mural paintings. The resulting outputs—namely the Degradation Index, together with the monitoring activity—support the optimization of resources by helping to identify the most effective conservation measures. This process, which involves professionals from different fields within an interdisciplinary framework, leads to the development of a holistic approach that can be applied in a wide range of contexts. However, it is not intended to function as a rigid standard, as community participation allows each site to be considered a unique scenario. Moreover, the approach fosters a deeper understanding of the interactions between conservation state, degradation kinetics, artwork characteristics, and contextual features.