Emergency assistance to cultural institutions in Odesa 2022-2024

Digitization of museum collections and archives

Odesa National Fine Arts Museum, the Museum of Odesa Modern Art, and the State Archive of the Odesa Region have received additional support to speed up the digitization of collections, as well as resources to reduce the risks of damage to collections.

Necessary materials for cultural institutions

In close cooperation with the Department of Culture, Nationalities, Religions and Protection of Cultural Heritage Objects of the Odesa Regional State Administration, the project has provided the necessary minimum stock of various materials that may be needed by local cultural institutions to safeguard and protect cultural heritage.

Blue Shield Emblems

One of the areas of UNESCO's support for Odesa's cultural heritage is the installation of the Blue Shield emblem on historic buildings, signifying their protection under UNESCO 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in Event of Armed Conflict.
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In cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, UNESCO funded the installation of emblems on 54 cultural sites in Odesa in 2022.

Protection of the city sculptures

Restoration of the windows and roof of the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum

During the Russian attack on the port of Odesa on July 22, 2023, the roof and windows of the Odesa National Art Museum were severely damaged by a blast wave. They were also restored with the support of UNESCO through the Emergency Fund for Heritage.

Additional Blue Shield emblems

During the second phase NGO Museum for Change with the support of UNESCO installed another 186 signs in the historic center of the city and in Odesa region.
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The "Blue Shield" emblems, which identify a cultural property to be protected under the international law, must be respected by all countries, including Russian Federation. Any breach of these obligations could constitute a war crime.

Digitization the ONFAM collection

The team of the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum continues to work hard to digitize the cards of the museum collection. Every day, researchers transfer information about artworks to the digital catalog to protect it from physical destruction.

“We are continuing the process of digitizing our collection, which we started in the spring of 2022. For the museum team, this is not only a matter of a new format for storing information, but also of creating conditions under which foreign and Ukrainian researchers can discover our collection. In this project, we wanted to capture not only the collection’s highlights but also works that we have not exhibited for a long time,” says Volodymyr Damaskin, Head of the Research and Education Department.

Thanks to funding from the UNESCO Heritage Emergency Fund, a total of 3,000 cards will be digitized in the period of 2022 to 2024. The project is implemented by the NGO Museum for Change.

Taking care of city sculptures

In the second phase of assistance to Odesa through the UNESCO Heritage Emergency Fund, we continued to work on protecting sculptures in the city's public space. In particular, at the request of the Odesa City Council, we covered two sites — the sculpture of the second half of the XIX century “Bathing Woman” and the monument to Otaman Holovatyi.

In cooperation with the City Council, we are also working on the renovation and repair of 5 protective constructions that were installed two years ago and already required additional maintenance: over the Holocaust Memorial, the composition “Lions” by Joseph Mormone, “Lion and Lioness” by Auguste Cain in the City Garden, the sculpture “Colossus” by Yehor Zigura, and “Petya and Gavryk”.Depicted on the photos: the covering of the monument to Otaman Holovatyi. Photos by Ivan Strakhov.

Photographic documentation of the exhibits of Odesa Archaeological Museum

NGO Museum for Change with the support of UNESCO organized the photographic documentation of the exhibits of Odesa Archaeological Museum.

Antique glass from the cities of the Northern Black Sea region and Trypillian culture dishes have already been photographed. Photographer Oleksii Katashynskiy continues this painstaking and important work.

"During a full-scale war, it is very important to preserve information about our museum's collections, which have the status of national treasure, as exhaustively as possible. When taking pictures of our artifacts, we save the photos in several formats, including RAW, to enable further identification of our items in case of an emergency. During this project, we focused on collections of unique objects of Odesa and Southern Ukraine," says Maria Lobanova, PhD, acting head of the department of scientific processing and fonds’ storage.

In total over two years:

We thank all partners, contractors, and employees of the institutions for their coordinated work to protect and save Ukrainian cultural heritage.
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Project Team:

Museum for Change co-founder, head of the project
Oleksandra Kovalchuk

Project manager, director at Odesa National Fine Arts Museum
Kateryna Kulai

Coordinator
Daria Dyakova

Photographer
Ivan Strakhov

Communication manager
Valeria Shevchenko

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