These days Rinat Akhmetov’s Foundation for Development of Ukraine awarded the winners of the Dynamic Museum Project with grants. The first prize and 10 million hryvnias went to the Lviv State Museum of Natural History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine for their project “Natural History Museum: from Life Evolution Theory to Live Museum Practice.” Another grant of 500,000 hryvnias was given to the National Center of Folk Culture Ivan Honchar Museum in Kyiv for implementation of innovative projects.
In general, the Dynamic Museum Project showed that museum workers want to change the very concept of the museum as a static form of preservation, research, and demonstration of historical heritage. This was proved by 25 projects, which were submitted to the contest by Ukrainian museums. The priority areas included development of human resources, new approaches to collection and exposition, new forms of educational activity, and implementation of new forms of administrative duties (PR, marketing, etc.). According to Anatolii Zabolotny, head of the Foundation for Development of Ukraine, the museums that sent their applications are dynamic and ready for changes. The experts say that the main reasons why museums are still rather conservative when it comes to reforms, even despite the desire to change, are the absence of substantial financing and post-Soviet closedness of museums.
ON THE CHANGE OF THE SOCIAL ROLE
In his conversation with The Day, Yurii Chornobai, director of the Lviv Natural History Museum, said that the museum had a goal “to create a new type of museum that would correspond to the level of perception of a modern person.” “Such a transformation has to increase the museum’s social meaning. It has to be an institution that not only preserves and displays exhibits, but exerts social influence, and has an educatory meaning and influence on similar institutions in the region,” the expert says. According to Chornobai, the transformation implies a significant expansion and development of social functions of a museum, such as creation of environment education programs, preservation of natural heritage, etc. “First of all, a live museum is a constant development, a connection with society. Of course, we need to use multimedia and interactive technologies, but this is not an end in itself. These are only the tools for the creation of a Live Museum that is connected to its environment and is taking into consideration even the objects located beyond the museum’s premises: landscapes, parks, and natural monuments,” Chornobai explains.
Another grant recipient, the Ivan Honchar Museum, is planning to invest its 500,000 hryvnias into the creation of relations between Ukrainian museums. “We are going to use this grant to create an experimental platform, which would be based on our largest gallery, and used for housing Ukrainian or even foreign exhibitions on competitive basis. We are also planning to create a system of training sessions, seminars, lectures, which would improve the level of our staff and staffs of other Ukrainian museums, and lay the foundations of basic systemic communication between Ukrainian and foreign museums,” shared Ihor Poshyvailo, deputy academia director of the Ivan Honchar Museum, curator of the Dynamic Museum grant project.
Poshyvailo believes the lack of such communication to be one of the reasons for the sluggishness of reforms in the museum sector. “It has so happened that there is no cooperation among the museum staffs. Post-Soviet museums are closed systems. Besides, there is no mechanism for such cooperation. Moreover, our very society is closed, contrary to the open Western societies. Meanwhile, such collaboration is absolutely vital, as it expands horizons and empowers museums, especially today when the museum sector is facing huge challenges. Only united can we bring forward some appreciable changes,” said Poshyvailo.
STRATEGIC GUIDELINES INSTEAD OF GRANTS
The Kyiv-based Ukrainian Museum of Books and Printing applied for the grant with its project “The Past and Modernity in the Space of the Ukrainian Museum of Books and Printing.” It was shortlisted, together with four other finalists, but failed to qualify for the grant. Instead, according to its director Valentya Bochkovska, the museum received a detailed strategy for its future development, i.e., a specific action plan. “One of our museum’s priorities is breaking away with monolog as a practice. We do not want guides to interfere with those who love history, old books, and museums. For this, we need innovations. We have picked out 12 areas, because we have a vision of our museum as a center of culture and art in the first place,” explained Bochkovska to The Day. The areas in question include the reconstruction of old crafts (in particular, printing books on Ivan Fedorov’s press) and theme festivals. “We are already working to hold the festival of Ukrainian children’s books. Now we are planning to hold a festival of medieval music. We failed to qualify for the grant, but I think that we can cope and implement all this on our own. I have already made a budget request for funds to reconstruct one of our buildings as a printing shop, which we are planning to open in 2014,” shared Bochkovska. The museum’s ambitions also include virtual storerooms, new technology and interactivity.
“The Museum of Books is a specific place, where one cannot see and appreciate the exhibits’ every aspect, so new technology and interactive approach are indispensable. That is why we are planning to place a monitor and tablet at the entrance to every storage department. The visitors could thus see what is happening at the storage, and use the tablets to scroll through the digitized exhibits and graphic materials. We also are planning to found the Center of Museum Training, jointly with the Ivan Honchar Museum and the Picture Gallery in Lviv, which has been already arranged, and also to consolidate the cooperation among museums through traveling exhibits and many other things,” said Bochkovska.
Failing to obtain the grant does not absolutely mean that the museum has to give up all its plans and ambitions. Bochkovska says that they will be looking for other methods to implement their ideas, through other grants, sponsor aid, and budget requests. It will be hard, since there are few organizations and agencies in Ukraine that are engaged in supporting museums. “Today, museums and their aspirations are supported by the Polish and American embassies, Rinat Akhmetov’s Foundation, and that’s it… The Dynamic Museum project was a provocation of sorts for us, an attempt to define our future strategies and priorities. Now we have to consider their implementation, through other grants or something else,” says Bochkovska.
Anatolii Zabolotny, director of Akhmetov’s Foundation for Development of Ukraine, suggests that the museums which came up with good project suggestions should continue in the same key: “First of all, they should look at our i3 grant program (idea – impulse – innovation). This program is aimed to develop contemporary culture, including museums. Smaller grants (up to 160,000 hryvnias) are available here for some experimentation. For example, it is this program that enabled several projects by the National Art Museum, such as the famous Ukrainian Baroque Myth, as well as the projects by the Sheptytsky National Museum, the Khanenkos Museum, and even the Local History Museum in Berdiansk.”
