Heather had 'no idea' what she wanted to do after school. Until she found a unique way to combine her two passions
Updated . First published
Heather Berry performs first aid conservation treatment in the field on a whetstone recovered from the shipwreck of South Australian. Silentworld Foundation
Like most, when Heather Berry was in high school, she had "no idea" what she wanted to do with her life.
She had a few passions, but she didn't know how to turn any of them into a career.
It wasn't until she returned from a gap year teaching tourists to dive in Seychelles that she discovered what would go on to become a more rewarding career than she ever could have imagined.
Before her gap year, Berry had completed an arts degree at the University of Melbourne, focusing on ancient world studies.
When she came back to Australia, she knew she wanted to go back to uni, so she started browsing the available master's degrees.
"I just sort of read through the descriptions of what was interesting and what spoke to me," she tells nine.com.au
"And there's the Master of Cultural Materials Conservation."
Heather Berry had no idea what she wanted to do, until she discovered the role of maritime conservator. Silentworld Foundation
Basically, the course was offering to teach students how to "look after ancient objects", which piqued her interest in history.
"I did a bit of research into what kinds of jobs people have, and I found that there's a whole subcategory of people who look after shipwrecks and maritime objects, and they can dive while they do it," she recalls.
"I read some of their papers, and I thought, 'That's what I want to do'."
She was able to combine her passion for history with her love of diving. Silentworld Foundation
Berry says that the role of a conservator is essentially to use chemistry to look after ancient objects and preserve them. The goal is to keep them in their original condition as if the objects have been untouched.
There are many different specialities, such as paper conservation and painting conservation, but Berry combined her passion for diving and history to become a maritime conservator.
She says the first time she was ever entrusted with a treatment subject, she could feel the pressure of being responsible for a one-of-a-kind ancient object.
Berry is currently completing her PhD in the conservation of waterlogged wood. James Hunter/Australian National Maritime Museum
"I did not sleep," she laughs.
"They were owned by the University of Melbourne; they were from the collection there, and they knew they were giving it to students to look after, but none of us were sleeping that well.
"We were all dreaming about the treatments that we were doing, but obviously, you can't live your whole career not sleeping like that."
She explains that among the conservator community, there's a culture of sharing your mistakes to prevent others from doing the same.
When diving underwater, Berry uses a special kind of waterproof paper to write. Silentworld Foundation
"I've read some papers where people will just say, 'Hey, here's how I've broken this object. This is what I did, and this is how it messed up the object', so that you can actually prevent yourself from doing that," she says.
Today, Berry is completing her PhD on conserving waterlogged objects at the University of Melbourne, while also working for Silent World Foundation, the same company that employed her straight out of her master's degree in 2019.
"I got incredibly lucky in that a 200-year-old European-style boat – but built with Australian timbers, so it's the oldest boat that we know of of this type – was found in Sydney," she says.
She also works for Silent World foundation, working on the company's collections as well as being contracted out to discoveries such as shipwrecks. Paul Hundley/Silentworld Foundation
"And they had somebody from the UK who was teaching how to actually conserve the object properly ... and he wanted somebody on the ground in Australia who could work on it like a younger emerging professional.
"So because I was the only one in my course who was doing maritime stuff, I got the job."
That boat is currently known as the Barangaroo Boat, and since working on it, Berry has never looked back.
"I just love history, and I love the stories the objects can tell," she says.
Her job is to use chemicals to keep objects in the condition in which they were found. Silentworld Foundation.
"I've always really loved that when you go, and you look at objects in a museum, and it's like 'oh, it was this part of a person's life'. And then I get to delve even further into that as a conservator when I get to understand the materiality of an object.
"So not only am I understanding an object and the place that it had in someone's life ... I now get to understand it is this kind of stone that probably would have originated from this kind of place."
Produced in partnership with CareerOne.
