Kyiv Biennial 2023
The Museum Forum Ukrainian and Polish Museums During the russian Invasion: Experience, Cooperation, Solidarity

The fifth edition of Kyiv Biennial is international and takes place in Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Uzhhorod, Vienna, Warsaw, Lublin and Berlin. It is conceived as a European event, with dispersed exhibitions and public programs in a number of Ukrainian and EU cities, and realized in partnership with leading European institutions in the field of contemporary art.

The Biennial aims at reintegrating the Ukrainian artistic community, divided and scattered throughout Europe by the war, in order to empower its actors to work and reflect collectively and together with international colleagues on cultural, social and environmental challenges Ukraine is currently facing and to imagine scenarios for an emancipatory future within a global context.
The Museum Forum is a space for exchange of ideas and experiences between Polish and Ukrainian museum workers. During the conference, museum representatives from Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Sloviansk, Starobilsk, Okhtyrka, and Khmelnytskyi will present their activities in wartime. The aim of the meeting is to share knowledge and experience of functioning during the war and to discuss with the Polish museological community what form international museology can take after the Russian genocide in Ukraine, how the war changed the perception of contemporary museology, the need to document current events and how it affected the functioning of Polish museums.

Despite the enormous damage and the ongoing invasion, Ukrainian museums and museologists have not stopped working: they are evacuating collections, accepting collections from other sites, and providing shelter for the staff of institutions located in Ukrainian regions under threat of direct hostilities. Considering the challenges of wartime, they are reorganizing the way they operate, which often means working without electricity, being faced with ongoing hostilities, working with displaced people, documenting war crimes, cooperating with the army, digitalizing heritage to preserve and protect it, creating Ukrainian and international networks of cooperation, and seeking funds to support museums beyond the state funding.

According to official government information, as of March 25th 2023, 1,373 cultural infrastructure facilities were damaged as a result of the Russian invasion; almost a third of them were destroyed, including 69 museums and galleries. Almost the entire territory of Luhansk and significant parts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk regions remain under temporary occupation. That is why the number of cultural infrastructure facilities damaged as a result of the hostilities is impossible to estimate.
The unprecedented experience of documenting war, which Ukrainian museum workers had to undertake without prior training, has completely changed museum practice and resulted in the development of functional protocols and security recommendations for potentially and actually threatened institutions. Given the often unpredictable course of events and the fact that more than 20 wars are currently underway in different parts of the world, this knowledge and practice is of exceptional value to the international museum community.

Kyiv Biennial 2023 is organized by Visual Culture Research Center (Kyiv) in partnership with: tranzit.at (Vienna), tranzit.org (Bratislava, Budapest, Bucharest, Cluj, Iași, Prague, and Vienna), Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Galeria Labirynt (Lublin), Museum Crisis Center (Lviv), Other Edges, Dovzhenko Centre (Kyiv), Asortymentna Kimnata (Ivano-Frankivsk), and Sorry, No Rooms Available (Uzhhorod).

Venue: Museum on the Vistula, Wybrzeże Kościuszkowskie 22 street, Warsaw
Time: October 23rd 2023, 10:00–20:00
Curated by Olha Honchar, Director of the Territory of Terror Memorial Museum in Lviv and initiator of the Museum Crisis Center, co-founder of the New Museum NGO and the Cultural Heritage Fund of Ukraine.
Languages: Ukrainian and Polish with simultaneous translation

Co-organizers: Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv Biennial 2023, Museum Territory of Terror, Museum Crisis Center
Event partners: L’Internationale, ICOM Poland, National Institute of Museums (NIM), Ukrainian House 

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

Participants:
Milena Chorna, National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War (Kyiv)
Dr. Paulina Florjanowicz, Director of National Institute for Museums (Warsaw)
Dr. Katarzyna Góralczyk, Director of the Institute of Heritage Protection (Krakow)
Olha Honchar, Director of the Territory of Terror Memorial Museum in Lviv, initiator of the Museum Crisis Center (Lviv), co-founder of the New Museum NGO and the Cultural Heritage Fund of Ukraine
Yevheniia Kaluhina, Director of the Sloviansk Museum of Local Lore (evacuated)
Ivanna Kyliushyk, Coordinator of the Meeting Centre at Ukrainian House (Warsaw)
Olesia Milovanova, Director of the Luhansk Regional Museum of Local Lore (twice-evacuated, Luhansk–Starobilsk–Lviv)
Liudmyla Mishchenko, Director of the Okhtyrka Museum of Local Lore
Olena Mykhailovska, Director of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum
Yuliia Pischanska, Director of the Dmytro Yavornytskyi National Historical Museum in Dnipro
Dr. Piotr Rypson, Chairman of the Polish National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM Poland)
Olha Salo, Deputy Director General of the National Museum of the Revolution of Dignity (Kyiv), Project Coordinator at the Centre for the Rescue of Cultural Heritage (Kyiv)
Olha Soshnikova, Director of the M.F. Sumtsov Kharkiv Historical Museum
Dr. hab. Marta Szuniewicz-Stępień, Professor at the Westerplatte Naval Academy, Department of Command and Naval Operations