Three Odesa museums joined the creation of the virtual exhibition "Crossroads of Ukrainian History"

The Archaica NGO, in partnership with the American nonprofit organization CyArk and the Odesa Archaeological Museum of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, presented an open virtual exhibition, Crossroads of Ukrainian History.

As the NGO told Intent, the exhibition will provide online access to 25 three-dimensional models of archaeological artifacts, some of which come from territories that are currently under threat of destruction as a result of the war.

Materials from several Ukrainian institutions, including the Odesa Archaeological Museum, Odesa Museum of History and Local Lore, and Odesa National Art Museum, were used to create the virtual exhibition.

The exhibition is available free of charge in a browser - from a smartphone or computer - and combines 3D models of museum exhibits, comments by Ukrainian archaeologists, and additional popular science materials. Some of the presented objects are currently not available for physical visits due to the temporary occupation or security reasons.

The project was realized with the support of the Iron Mountain Living Legacy initiative, the U.S. Embassy Fund for Cultural Preservation, and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.

The concept of the exhibition

Ukraine is not just an arbitrary outline on a map. It is a place with a special history, a place where different peoples - farmers and pastoralists, nomads and city dwellers, tyrants and democrats - have sought to come from all over the world for thousands of years. Our exhibition tells how they came here, what they brought with them, and how the inhabitants of this land reinterpreted their heritage and created something unique - Ukraine and Ukrainians.

The relevance of this space was created not by our curatorial approach, but by the daily news. Now, more than ever, it is important to remind ourselves and others what we are like and why we are like that. What makes Ukraine special and what can it teach others? We want to remind our compatriots of this by visualizing our history in 3D, as well as presenting it to the wider English-speaking public, explaining its uniqueness and the importance of preserving it.

The exhibition space

The virtual museum consists of four rooms, each of which tells the story of a particular direction from which people and ideas came to Ukraine. Each area represents one historical era, one nation, and one remarkable event in our history. All of them are reflected in the symbolic center of our museum space, where the Cossack era weaves different threads into a single Ukrainian narrative.

In each room, the viewer will find five three-dimensional models of those exhibits that, on the one hand, clearly explain important features of the culture of these people, and on the other hand, are connected to Ukraine geographically, historically, and archaeologically.

Кирило Бойко