When the Eaton Fire swept through Altadena in January 2025, artist Diana Thater lost decades of raw footage, master tapes, installation manuals, and ephemera stored in her garage. Her husband, artist T. Kelly Mason, managed to save a server and several hard drives, but much of her earlier archive—never digitized—was destroyed. In the aftermath, Thater began working with the Canyon Media Art Conservation Center (CMACC), a nonprofit conservation lab opening in 2026 that specializes in time-based media art. Led by conservator Cass Fino-Radin, CMACC is helping Thater locate surviving versions of her works in museums and private collections to rebuild and preserve her archive.
This story matters because it highlights a systemic crisis in the preservation of media-based contemporary art. As technology evolves rapidly, video and digital works face obsolescence, and artists often bear the burden of maintaining their own archives without institutional support. Thater's loss is not an isolated tragedy but a common challenge for artists working in film and video. CMACC aims to create a cooperative model of regional conservation centers for media art, addressing a gap that has long existed for painting and sculpture conservation. The effort underscores the urgent need for infrastructure to protect fragile media art from both natural disasters and technological decay.