Organizing an exhibition is a daunting task: you must research a topic, select items and objects to exhibit from an archive or from private sources, prepare the display cases and exhibition spaces and create a narrative path that visitors can relate to. Usually the entire process takes time and a lot of energy as well, but, doing it in a country at war is even more difficult, if not impossible. Yet in Ukraine they have just done it, using rather unexpected materials - Russian artefacts collected during the current war.
Ukraine's military history museum has on display in its outdoor area a variety of relics including the remains of a Russian helicopter, a Russian armoured personnel carrier and a broken tank turret. Inside the museum, there is a temporary display of other objects, including Russian soldiers' passports, ID cards, dog tags and notebooks, evidence of the occupation of the towns and villages around Kyiv.
The National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War in Kyiv expanded the topic and organized a larger exhibition. Entitled "Ukraine Crucifixion", the event - opened on 8th May to celebrate the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation - is the first museum exhibition in the country and the world dedicated to the Russian-Ukrainian war. The exhibition tries to chronicle the Russian occupation around Kyiv and in other towns.
Members of the museum staff started acquiring the objects to display since March: accompanied by the Ukrainian military, they went on expeditions in different cities, including Irpin, Bucha, Borodyanka and Hostomel. This isn't a new practice for the museum: its curators have been collecting relics and remains since 2014 to create exhibitions about the events in Crimea.
After gathering the items, the curators arranged them in installation-like configurations: a variety of Russian army boots are arranged inside a red star and there is a map of Kyiv with police stations and other strategic points carefully marked using coloured coding, plus passports, and other personal effects of Russian soldiers.
There is also emphasis on the artefacts collected from destroyed churches, including a charred church cupola, an icon representing the deposition of Christ from the Cross with a fragment of Russian shrapnel stuck in it, and an image from the Russian orthodox church of St. Demetrius of Rostov, from the village of Makariv in the Kyiv region, that was bombed by the Russians.
Visitors can also immerse themselves in the lives of the people who lived underground to survive the bombs: using original contents, the curators recreated a shelter where residents of Hostomel lived for more than a month.
As this is a war museum, it is obviously important for the curators to create a timeline of events and preserve history for future generations. But maybe one day we will see these artefacts displayed also in other events and museums, like the real boat that in 2015 was involved in the Mediterranean's deadliest shipwreck in which hundreds of migrants died, and that was displayed at the Venice Biennale three years ago.
Like that boat, the pieces from the Russian invasion collected and displayed in museums in Ukraine can be considered as educational projects, modern relics of contemporary dramas and tragedies: the items and artefacts aren't indeed on display here just for those Ukrainians who didn’t live the occupation, but for all people, so that we can all learn a lesson.
To this end the Museum of the Second World War has also launched online exhibitions: one of them traces parallels between the Second World War and the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict through images. These photographs from a tragic past and from an uncertain present invite viewers to consider the fear and anxiety people have been going through in Ukraine since February, but also their resistance and hopes.
Besides, since March, the museum staff has been on the streets of Kyiv to document wartime and create impromptu photographic events such as "Kyiv: One-Day Report. March 8, 2022", a photographic essay in 44 pictures that looks at how the war destroyed the life of the Ukrainian capital, erasing a peaceful life and existence.
The photo exhibition was presented at the World Center for Peace, Freedom and Human Rights in Verdun (France), at the Jeju International Peace Center (Republic of Korea), in the square near the National Theater in Mannheim (Germany) and in the centre of Cetinje (Montenegro) and, hopefully, it will keep on touring the world and stopping at other museums, galleries and exhibition venues in the next few months.
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