The Wounded Culture project. Episode 1. Okhtyrka

“Territory of Terror” Memorial Museum, charity foundation “Foundation of Cultural Heritage of Ukraine”, American technological start-up with Ukrainian roots Aspichi Inc. and “Museum Crisis Center” initiative launched joint project called #wounded_culture, which aims to record crimes committed against Ukrainian culture by the Russian invaders, document the experience of museum workers during the war, and prevent irreversible losses of cultural heritage using modern technology.

 According to official data, since February 24th more that 500 cultural objects and institutions had been damaged, including more than 30 museums. Since March 2022, the Museum Crisis Center, which provides financial assistance to museum staff who stayed in Ukraine and continue their professional activities during the war, and museum institutions, has established a network of cooperation with more than 150 museums, many of which are potential objects of recording. We have peer-to-peer access to more than 850 museum professionals from the most war-affected areas.

The Okhtyrka Museum of Local Lore became a pilot episode of the new Wounded Culture project, which has two components:
1) digitalization of cultural heritage using VR technologies;
2) documentation of the experience of museum workers and museums as cultural objects through video interviews with the main actors using the oral history method.
The building of the Okhtyrka Museum of Local Lore was severely damaged in the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion: the roof was destroyed, doors and windows were smashed, and the walls were cracked, so the question of whether the building can be restored is still open. The museum lost 84 exhibits out of a collection of 16,000 items.

During the expedition to Okhtyrka the team of #wounded_culture project conducted 5 interviews – with the museum director Liudmila Mishchenko, museum’s chef accountant who from the very first days took an active part in the debris removal and evacuation of exhibits, and three of the most active volunteers from Okhtyrka, who were involved in the museum's rescue. Their stories are invaluable for the history of Ukrainian culture and history in general. Two VR tours will be created based on the VR and 360 filming:
1) a sightseeing tour that will convey the scale of the museum, the destruction, and the circumstances under which it happened;
2) a virtual tour of the museum with the museum director, who will talk about the most interesting exhibits from the museum's permanent exhibition.

This project is the act of cultural resistance to colonial practices of violent distruction of public memory. It aims not only to draw the attention of the international community to cultural losses in Ukraine, but also to counteract these losses through VR technologies that will help preserve the image of museums in de-occupied or border areas.New Paragraph

"This project is important to us because it gives us the opportunity to hear the voices of museum workers, to imagine what it is like to be a museum worker at war, who are dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage, which contains the history of everything that happened on our land. Thus, by preserving the past, we write the history of the present for future generations. Because this war is a war for our memory, for what and how we will remember. Therefore, using all classical and non-classical methods, we are recording this experience of our fellow museum workers, and we will do everything to tell the world how russia is destroying Ukraine, destroying our museums. And also to tell how we are fighting and winning," says Olha Honchar, director of the “Territory of Terror” Museum and co-founder of the “Cultural Heritage Foundation of Ukraine” charity foundation.

We cannot return the bombed objects, but we can preserve their images and their history for our descendants.

The first episode was produced with the support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Ukraine (Kyiv).

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