During the full-scale war, with the support of the House of Europe, Evgen Gomonjuk, a cultural expert at the Mykolaiv Recovery and Development Office and manager of the MY ART Platform, and his team managed not only to restore museums in Mykolaiv damaged by shelling, but also to give them a new life.
Evgen Gomonjuk spoke about this in an interview with The Ukrainians.
“It is important for us to preserve the meanings, because we cannot build our identity from scratch”
Anyone interested in cultural life in Mykolaiv has heard of the MY ART platform at least once. In recent years, this organization has organized many important initiatives in the city: from local cultural festivals to volunteer headquarters and digitization of museum exhibits.
The history of MY ART began in 2017. At that time, the team was preparing the Mykolaiv Art Week contemporary art festival, and the name came from there — a combination of the first two letters Mykolaiv + Art. Evgen Gomonjuk is one of the founders of the organization and its project manager.
In 2024, together with his colleagues, he continued one of the long-standing collaborations with local museums: the team restored the damaged exhibition of the Mykolaiv Regional Museum of Local Lore “Staroflotski Barracks”, which has suffered the most among the city’s cultural institutions during Russian shelling since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. The team repaired the exhibition space, replaced display cases, and updated the exposition. This is important work for the preservation of Mykolaiv’s cultural heritage.
No one was prepared for the museums’ evacuation
In 2022, when it became clear the war would last, the MY ART team began cooperating with museums. At that point, the team could not even imagine how their role would change, as everything started from simple, albeit important, steps: the evacuation of some pieces and providing materials to protect the exhibits. Then, MY ART team helped Mykolaiv museums to prepare the exhibits for long-term storage during the war and in case of emergency evacuation. With the support of House of Europe and Goethe-Institut Ukraine, special wooden boxes, tapes, and other packing materials, including equipment for securing stock vaults, were provided for the Museum of Shipbuilding and the Mykolaiv Regional Museum of Local History. The question was how to secure the collections and, most critically, prevent their destruction.
“Museums did not have funds, and the Ministry of Culture was not ready either. Evacuating museums seemed impossible — this had not happened in the history of Ukraine since World War II. No one even thought about moving the museums anywhere”, Evgen says.
At that point, MY ART effectively became a lifeline for these institutions, assisting them in their most difficult period. Such support was one of the earliest indicators that preserving cultural heritage during wartime was not just a task but a mission for the team.
“We are doing this because no one else is able to. It was not forced on us; we initiated it ourselves. We wanted to help, as everyone was supporting each other to the best of their ability. We were not just saving the walls; we were saving the meanings that existed within them. And that was it. It is important, as the museum building itself is an architectural monument designed by an English architect, which also underscores its connection with other countries”, Evgen Gomonjuk says.
In the summer of 2022, the number of enemy attacks on the city increased, and the situation became more complicated. The shipbuilding plant next to the museum started being hit daily. Through the spring of 2023, there were more than five direct hits in the vicinity of the museum, resulting in broken windows and shattered glass display cases that could not withstand the power of the blast waves. By that moment, part of the exhibits had already been secured with OSB panels.
It was then, at the end of 2023, that people started coming back to the city, and the museum slowly came back to life. Then, it was not just the physical structure being repaired, but also hope and faith were being rebuilt, proving that even in the darkest of times culture, just like people, would find enough strength to preserve its essence and keep living despite the challenges brought by the war.
“When it became clear that life was coming back to the city, we started to look for opportunities to continue supporting the museum. We applied for a Large Infrastructure Grant from the House of Europe. At the beginning, when we only applied for basic support, the situation was more grave—the museum lacked windows, and our main aim was to provide at least temporary protection: insulate, seal holes, and protect from rain. But when the situation stabilised, and replacing windows was no longer pressing, our focus shifted”, Evgen Gomonjuk says.
Then, the team started thinking about the museum’s development and purchased new equipment: tables and cameras for digitization. This allowed the museum not only to preserve the collections but also to digitise some of them, which was an important step in the museum’s development and increased its profile. Their approach evolved from temporary fixes to more strategic steps focused on long-lasting improvement of the museum and its work.
Making the Collections Visible
“In addition, the team works extensively with foundations to showcase what the museum has: “Our role is to highlight these treasures and popularise them. To make little-known items become valuable. Generally, we have been working on the preservation of cultural heritage through digitization since 2020. We want more people to know about the museum collections, to use them in their research or in graphic design, to use them as materials for collages, installations, etc.
Our heritage, particularly local history, dates to ancient times. This is the foundation on which Mykolaiv stands — a city that has its own identity and idiosyncrasies. This is evidence of the civilisations that lived here. This land was never empty; people always lived here, and significant world processes took place here. These are not just display cases in a museum; they are part of our nation’s history, its soil, its foundation. For us, it is a great achievement we can only be proud of”.
Thanks to this effort, the museum gained momentum for further development; it became, in all senses, a more open space, more appealing for younger audiences.
“Thanks to the new display cases, repairs, and other equipment, the museum staff managed to reimagine the exhibition. Although our initial goal was not to carry out such a large-scale reorganisation, about 30% of the exhibition was updated, or maybe even more. New items were added. A lot changed, and the work continues. Some historical artifacts are no longer locked behind display cases, and now we can interact with them, hold them in our hands, and it is now a truly exciting experience”.
According to Yevhen, all of this helped the museum not only upgrade but also survive, since they managed to retain the staff, and this is important given the situation in Mykolaiv in 2022. Then, lots of museums lost their personnel because people left the city, and even those who were responsible for the collections, could not open them due to the absence of employees at their workplaces. And here the team has been preserved, and they are passionate about their work. They love what they do.
“It all became a real source of inspiration for me. Because if you compare what the museum was like before and what it is now, they are two different museums. I think the museum staff also feel this support and attention towards them, and this motivates them to do a better job”.
