From mid-March 2022, the Center provides practical assistance in saving cultural values and monuments in Ukraine with the support of the German government.
A delegation of the German Ukraine Art Aid Centers visited the Lviv Academy of Arts. The center organizes the urgent transportation of necessary materials to Ukraine for the protection of collections and cultural monuments.
These include packing materials, shipping boxes, restoration materials and tools, fire extinguishers, fire blankets, fire retardant paints, dehumidifiers, generators, humidifiers, work equipment and much more.
During 2022-2023, museums, nature reserves, and cultural institutions of Ukraine received approximately 3 million euros of support. The funds were provided by the German Federal Government for Culture and Media and the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany. In particular, they handed over generators, air dryers, air conditioners and other equipment for preserving museum exhibits and ensuring the operation of cultural institutions.
“During frequent meetings with representatives of many international organizations, everyone promises to help with something, but not everyone keeps their word. You, in turn, have already made a considerable contribution to the preservation of Ukrainian culture, without advertising it. Before the start of the full-scale war, it was as if our culture was not noticed, studied, or interested, as if it did not exist at all. No wonder, because we are part of European culture. And now the world has woken up. We need to preserve the heritage of our ancestors, because culture is a part of our identity, which the enemy is so eager to destroy. But they will not succeed, if only because, along with Ukrainians, our good friends from Germany care about our culture,” said the head of Lviv OVA Maksym Kozytskyi.
The German Government plans to allocate an additional financial resource in the amount of another 3 million euros, so the representatives of Ukraine Art Aid Centers assured that they will continue to help cultural institutions, including those in the Lviv region.
Together with the leadership of the Lviv OVA, the representatives of the Center discussed the support of the future museum of the Ukrainian artist Volodymyr Patyk, which is being created in Lviv.
“I’m ashamed to admit it, but we were like in a dream – we didn’t know anything about your culture, and now, when we learn more and more every day, it seems as if we discovered a new continent. We perfectly understand that Ukraine needs military aid the most, but we should not forget that any countries are united, first of all, culturally,” said Johannes Nathan, a member of the management group of Ukraine Art Aid Centers.
Recently, a 3D scanner was transferred from Berlin to Lviv for the SKEIRON “SaveUkrainianHeritage” initiative to digitize cultural monuments. Thanks to the scanner, 3D models of the House of Organ and Chamber Music, the monument to Adam Mickiewicz and Ivan Franko, the Latin Cathedral, the Church of the Ascension of Christ and the Powder Tower were created.