Olivia van Rooijen and Carien van Aubel are both specialists in identifying plastics in art. Within the Project Plastics they developed an online identification tool resulting in workshops that enable anybody in charge of art collections in any discipline to identify plastics in their collection themselves.

Olivia is a conservation scientist at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE). She completed her MSc in Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam and after finishing her studies she joined Project Plastics. This project coordinated by the Foundation for the Conservation of Contemporary Art (SBMK) and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) focused on the identification of plastics in modern and contemporary artworks and design objects. After this project she was involved in ‘Smelly Plastics’, where she developed methods to determine off-gassing compounds that are causing plastics to smell.

Carien is an independent conservator specialised in modern and contemporary art working both in the Netherlands and United Kingdom. Her studio is based in London where she works on various projects for private collectors, museums and galleries. She received her postgraduate training in conservation at the University of Amsterdam and holds an MSc in Chemistry. Her research focuses on plastics used in artworks. In her work as a conservation researcher at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum she developed a method for identifying plastics in museum collections. She carried this research over into her role as researcher on ‘Project Plastic’ to develop the Plastic Identification Tool together with Olivia. Together they worked on ‘Project Plastics’ and ‘Smelly Plastics’ and give Plastic Identification Workshops internationally.