About Us

Who are we?

Museum Crisis Center

You are now on the website of the Museum Crisis Centre initiative, which arose on March 3 2022,  exactly one week after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Since March 2022 and until today our main aim is to support museum workers who stay in Ukraine and continue to work in the museums - destroyed, shelled, looted, evacuated, occupied. Wounded, often deprived or significantly limited in state support because of the war, but not conquered. 

Unfortunately, from the first days of the war and until today Ukrainian museums remain as a target of russian rockets. According to the official information, as of July 25, 2023, 1605 cultural infrastructure facilities suffered damage, including 90 museums and galleries. At the same time, part of the territories of Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions are still in the state of temporary occupation, so we don’t have a full picture of them.

Activities

What we do:

• Provide individual financial support to museum workers in the form of non-refundable financial assistance. You will find the stories of museum support in the “Supported Museums” section. Most of these funds are spent “on a living” and basic needs (medicine, personal hygiene, and food) as well as “small” but essential museum needs - gas and evacuation of the collection, materials for emergency conservation of buildings after shellings, sometimes - for personal evacuation from the occupied territories or support for the living there. 
• Provide information about the actual possibilities of museum support and link museum workers with the relevant organizations.
• Present Ukrainian museum community in times of russian aggression towards Ukraine on the international level: ICOM conferences, participation in the thematic events in European countries (Germany, Austria, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, Slovakia, and others) and the United States.
• Cover relevant information about the state of the museum sector in international and Ukrainian media - currently, more than 250 media outlets. Read more in the section "Mentions in the press".
• Started the project of documentation of the experience of museum workers at the russian war against Ukraine  “Wounded culture”

Why we are

Who we are: the museum "clean-up" by partners and friends:

In the first months of the full-scale invasion, the Museum Crisis Center initiative was administered by the NGO "Insha Osvita" (Olga Dyatel, Alyona Karavay, Yulia Alenina), and then the management was transferred under the wing of the NGO "New Museum" (Olha Honchar, Bogdana Brylynska). For a long time, “Insha Osvita” also helped with fundraising for the Museum Crisis Center and contributed its resources to our budget.

The legal peculiarities of working in Ukraine and the need to raise funds, in particular from abroad, gave rise to the creation of the Charitable Organization "Cultural Heritage Foundation of Ukraine" (OlРa Honchar, Maksym Davydenko), whose details are attached to this website. 

At the same time, the ЬCC's activities would not have been possible without the partnership support of the Kyiv Biennale (NGO Visual Culture Center: Serhiy Klymko, Vasyl Cherepanyn) and the Klymentiy Sheptytsky Museum of Folk Architecture and Life in Lviv (Mykhailo Zakopets), as well as partner museums: Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes "Territory of Terror" (Lviv), Luhansk Regional Museum of Local Lore (in evacuation in Lviv) (Olesia Milovanova), Dnipro National Historical Museum named after Dmytro Yavornytskyi (Yulia Pishchanska).

The Donors section is dedicated to the energy of people who have contributed their time, connections, and talents to ensure that our initiative receives various types of support. We call these people the MCC's agents: Ksenia Malykh (Pinchuk Art Center), Olesya Domaradska (Zelena Kanapa Gallery), Pavlo Gudimov (Ya Gallery), Eva Yakubovska (Wiese Berlin), Marta Trotsiuk (Gallery 101), curator Oleksandra Tryanova, Maria Iserlis, curator (Albertinum Museum of Fine Arts), Yuriy Biley, artist, Natalia Bunda (Head of the Department of Development and Culture of the Lviv City Council).

MCC website development and content: Denys Koval and Antonina Filonenko, Yuliya Rudyuk, Hanna Khriakova.