UK culture and heritage organisations send packing crates, conservation and packing materials and collections documentation equipment to Ukraine
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, sector colleagues and organisations across the world mobilised to practically help their colleagues in Ukraine.
Very often the support for Ukrainian museums and staff has been coordinated collaboratively with support of ICOM National Committees.
The UK response began with the UA-UK Cultural Heritage Initiative asking Icon to set up a series of Basecamp teams to co-ordinate support efforts. Due to security restrictions, the logistics and specific details of the support provided needs to be kept confidential.
With the logistical and financial support of ALIPH (International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas), ICOM UK with museums, galleries, libraries, universities and sector support organisations across the UK collaborated with Constantine Ltd. to organise a shipment of wooden crates and packing, conservation materials, and collections (movable and immovable) documentation equipment.
With limited storage options in Ukraine, the wooden crates, packing materials and conservation supplies will help Ukrainian colleagues protect their collections and cultural heritage under difficult circumstances. The documentation equipment will help Ukrainian colleagues to create inventories and record the presence and condition of their cultural assets.
The shipment from the UK arrived in Lviv, Ukraine on 23 July where the crates and materials were unloaded for onward distribution within Ukraine.
We are very grateful for all your support and we are sure that, also due to your help, our masterpieces, monuments, museums etc. are safer than they were at the beginning of the war.
– Viktor Sobiianskyi, a Ukrainian culture manager
“We express our sincere gratitude to our British partners for their concern and support, as well as to the ALIPH Foundation and Штаб порятунку спадщини / Heritage Emergency Response Initiative for assisting in the delivery of the shipment.” – National Preserve ‘Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra’, Ukraine
Read the full article and see the full list of organisations involved on the ICOM website.
