Some Ukrainian museums (except open-air museums) are closed not only in occupied or bombed territory but even in the capital, Kyiv. For example, the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the largest one, is closed.
“With the beginning of the war, the museums have taken down their permanent exhibitions. By the end of martial law, they will not be able to return exponents. The collections were evacuated to safe places” Kateryna Chuieva, Vice-Minister of Culture of Ukraine and ICOM-Ukraine President confirmed.
Museums that opened after the 1st of April are mostly in the western and central parts of Ukraine. They tried to organize educational projects, temporary exhibitions or animated excursions at different locations by a limited number of employees, who did not evacuate abroad.
The spaces of the most prestigious collections such as The Khanenko Museum, the Odessa Fine Arts Museum and the Lviv Art Gallery, are almost empty now. Nevertheless, the belated evacuation was very criticized within the Ukrainian art community. Especially after the “robbed” by occupants museums of Melitopol and Mariupol, or the affecting of the museum of great Ukrainian philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda, the museum with works of famous naive painter Maria Prymachenko, and museums in Chernihiv and Okhtyrka. The Kharkiv Art Museum staff removed Durer’s masterpieces from the already mutilated walls.
However, it is striking that during the first days of the war the Museum Crisis Center emerged – a public initiative to help regional museums and their staff financially, technically, and to preserve museum collections. At the very beginning the Center, with a help of colleges, private patrons and, first of all, international partners (for example ALIPH foundation), supported museum staff to move from dangerous places or to provide them with food. There was also help for museums with the delivery of packing materials to safeguard evacuation. At the present time, some museums work directly with European colleagues or in the frame of UNESCO projects and even try to distribute received aid and to help in another way for colleges, such as ‘Hetman’s Capital’ Museum, a сomplex of historical monuments related to Ukrainian Cossacks epoch, which supported the Chernihiv Historial Museum, one of the oldest in Ukraine, or the Odessa museum workers, who applied for a grant for the Mykolaiv Art Museum.
All museums will need this help even after the war. I mean not only the repair of damaged premises – very often, because of constant shelling and limited time, exhibition equipment was destroyed during the evacuation. On the other hand, it is a good chance to renew an exhibition space for the small museums of local lore, where exposition conceptions are rather obsoleted from Soviet times.
It is difficult to imagine, but even in the reality of war a lot of museum workers continue to think conceptually and even how to keep historical artifacts for the future. The main historical museum – National Museum of History of Ukraine – is gathering exhibits from the Russian-Ukrainian war. The Galagan Art Museum decided to leave the funnel from a mine in the museum’s yard. The mayor of Kharkiv announced the creation of a new municipal museum dedicated to nowadays’ tragic events. This theme is too actual for museum visitors today. Despite all security restrictions, on one May day 1,209 people visited the first exhibition about armed conflict ‘Ukraine – Crucifiction’, which opened in the Second World War Museum a month ago.
This report was written by Viktor Sobiianskyi, a Ukrainian culture manager and theatre curator. He is a graduate of the Karpenko-Kary Kyiv National University of Theater, Cinema and Television and project manager of the Polish Institute in Kyiv. His work includes The Workshops of Polish Choreographs, Directors and Playwrights, The Festival of Young Ukrainian Directors and international workshops, supported by British Council, Czech Center and Austrian Forum.
ICOM UK has commissioned Viktor Sobiianskyi, a Ukrainian cultural manager, to write a series of reports on how the current armed conflict has impacted Ukrainian museums, theatres and creative life.
The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author.
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