The charitable foundation‚ The Foundation for Ukrainian Cultural Heritage‘, an American tech-startup with Ukrainian roots ‘Aspichi Inc.’ and the initiative‚ Museum Crisis Center‘ have embarked on a joint project #poranena_kultura (the Ukrainian for‚ the injured culture‘ – translator’s note). The project is aimed at documenting crimes committed by Russian invaders against Ukrainian culture, as well as document the experience of employees at museums during war with a view to preventing thefts of Ukrainian heritage with the help of modern technologies.
According to unofficial data, since February 24 over 500 cultural objects have been damaged, in particular, over 30 museums. Since March 2022 the Museum Crisis Center, which provides funds for museum institutions and employees at museums who have stayed in Ukraine and who keep working amid war, has established a cooperation network covering over 150 museums. A significant part of these museums are potential objects for documentation. The Center has contacted more than 850 employees at museums located in the territories affected by war the most.
The Local History Museum at Okhtyrka has featured in a pilot episode of the new project run by the charitable organization ‚The Foundation for Ukrainian Cultural Heritage‘ and the startup specializing in VR-technology ‚Aspichi‘. The project is called ‚Poranena Kultura‘ and consists of two components: digitization of cultural heritage with the use of VR-technologies; documentation (in the form of video interviews) of the experience obtained by workers at museums and museums themselves.
The building of the museum was badly damaged in the first days of the Russian full-fledged invasion of Ukraine. The roof was demolished, doors and windows were knocked out and the walls cracked. The question of the museum’s renovation remains open. 84 museum exhibits have irrevocably been lost. The entire collection comprised 16000 exhibits.
During a trip to the city of Okhtyrka the team of the #poranena_kultura project did 5 video interviews, which featured the head of the museum, Lyudmyla Mishchenko, the chief accountant, who has actively been participating in clearing the debris and evacuating the exhibits, and three especially active local volunteers who were engaged in the process of saving the museum. Their testimonies are invaluable for the history of Ukrainian culture and history in general. Based on video shot with the help of VR technologies and the 360-degree format, two VR-excursions will be made:
- General excursion whose aim is to offer a general view of the museum, its destruction and the circumstances under which it happened;
- A virtual tour of the museum given by its director who speaks about the most interesting exhibits from the museum’s permanent collection.
This project aims to not only draw the attention of the international audience to the cultural losses sustained by Ukraine, but to also prevent them thanks to the VR-technologies.
«This project is important to our foundation since it offers an opportunity to hear the voices of museum workers. It helps us get into the shoes of people working amid war and dedicated to their work. They preserve cultural heritage that holds the history of everything that has happened in our land. Therefore, by preserving the past, we are writing the history of the present for posterity. Among other things, this war is fought for the sake of our memory, for what and how we will remember. Thus, by using all conventional and unconventional methods, we are documenting the work experience of our colleagues from museums. We will do everything we can to tell the world about how Russia is destroying Ukraine and our museums. We will also be telling the story of how we are fighting and winning», Olha Honchar says, the co-founder of the charitable foundation‚ The Foundation for Ukrainian Cultural Heritage‘.
We cannot resuscitate the bombed objects, but we can save their images and preserve their story for posterity.
