Photos of objects before and after restoration are striking and also popular motifs in the media – the process that lies in between and encompasses numerous working and decision-making processes often remains invisible. Conservation and restoration operates at the interface of various disciplines: art, humanities, natural sciences, conservation sciences. It begins with the object and is characterised by careful consideration, a search for suitable methods and materials, a complex synopsis of numerous factors. The prerequisite is to familiarise oneself with the object, its materiality, structure, production, art historical and cultural historical significance. Often new tools and methods have to be found, techniques and working materials from other fields have to be adapted to the requirements of restoration. Scientific analyses, test series and experiments support this process. Only through an interdisciplinary approach individual questions, raised by each object, can be resolved. At the same time, restoration is subject to strict ethical guidelines to realise its responsibility for our art and cultural assets. The thinking processes are manifested in and around the object. At the Angewandte Festival the Institute of Conservation wants to pursue the traces left by these processes. In the exhibition these tactile traces will be documented on vertical “work tables”. Test series and specimens, documentation drawings and photographs, tools and equipment right up to cannulas and spatulas are laid out on tables dedicated to the restoration of painting, object, textile and stone.