Project description
Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ukrainian displaced persons in Hungary: inclusive community practices
Duration: 15 month
Total project budget: US$ 114.367
Amount requested from the Fund: US$ 99.709,75
State Party contribution: US$ 14.657,25
SUMMARY OF THE PROJECT:
The primary aim of the project is to preserve the intangible cultural heritage of Ukrainian displaced persons’ communities in Hungary through various collaborative cultural activities. The core of the programme is five pilot projects implemented with the active participation of Ukrainian communities linked to different Hungarian museums and their collections. The projects focus on five important elements of the Ukrainian cultural heritage: textile work and refined handicraft, traditional folk dances, traditional music and singing, religion and feasts, and gastronomy. The pilot projects are connected to one or more cultural heritage elements inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List of Ukraine until 2022, meanwhile offering the Ukrainian displaced persons’ community a possibility of contemporary cultural reinterpretation of the heritage elements filtered through their personal experiences and perspectives. During the project activities the displaced persons can develop new communication and cooperation skills and feel a raising awareness of their valuable Ukrainian cultural heritage that may help their integration in case they stay longer outside Ukraine and reintegration with community building in case they return back to their homeland in the future.
The project's various collaborative cultural activities aim to preserve the communities' cultural heritage and promote its contemporary reinterpretation filtered through their personal experiences and perspectives. The preparatory and evaluation workshop provides the communities with valuable training on intercultural, psychological, and methodological aspects to enhance their communication and cooperation skills. The five pilot projects implemented with Hungarian museums linked to the Ukrainian intangible cultural heritage offer an opportunity for the communities to gain hands-on experience in safeguarding their cultural heritage, develop new skills and knowledge, and encourage innovative approaches. The dissemination of the project results through five short movies, a three-lingual online publication, and an international conference can raise awareness among a wider audience and provide a platform for the communities to share their experiences and perspectives. The project also offers an opportunity for the implementing organization or partner agency to learn from the communities and gain new insights into effective approaches to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. Overall, the project can make a significant contribution to building up capacities and strengthening existing resources in the field of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, both among the communities and the implementing organizations.
The three main modalities of the project are:
(1) a preparatory and an evaluation workshop with intercultural, psychological, and methodological lectures to train the Ukrainian displaced persons’ communities in cooperation with Hungarian museum professionals,
(2) developing and implementing five pilot projects in different Hungarian museums linked to the Ukrainian intangible cultural heritage,
(3) dissemination of the project results through five short movies, a three–lingual online publication and an international conference.
KEY ACTIVITIES:
The key activities of the project are the followings:
1. Preparatory workshop
During the three-day long preparatory workshop different cultural, psychological, and methodological specialists involving Ukrainian displaced persons train the project members to prepare them to design and implement the museum pilot projects. The participants of the workshop involve Ukrainian displaced persons and Hungarian museum professionals who work together to achieve two main goals. On the one hand to have a deeper knowledge about Ukrainian history and culture, and on the other hand to find the key topics of the pilot projects that will help preserve Ukrainian intangible cultural heritage. The topics of the pilot projects may be particularly related to Ukrainian history, art, culture, religion and gastronomy. During the workshop the participants take part in activities focusing on intercultural dialogue and inclusive practices. Based on our previous project experiences we believe that professional training and sensitization of project participants are essential while working with vulnerable target groups. The participants learn about how to foster cultural diversity by different activities, they meet good museum practices targeting displaced persons and ethnical minorities and get psychological preparation as well.
2. Implementation of the five pilot projects
After the workshop the five pilot projects will be implemented within a maximum of six months, in close cooperation between the Ukrainian communities and the museum professionals. The pilot projects are centered around five important areas of the Ukrainian cultural heritage and they are implemented in museums with artifacts and museological knowledge linked to the cultural heritage element in focus. The whole process is based on the active participation of the people concerned in a way that the project builds bridges between the cultural traditions and the contemporary life of the Ukrainian displaced persons’ communities. The five core topics are as follows:
a) Ukrainian textile works and refined handicraft: a series of lectures, exhibition walks or workshops based on authentic Ukrainian textile patterns, handwoven techniques, traditional painting methods, and motifs like Petrykivka decorative painting, Örnek system of symbolic designs and Kosiv painted ceramics; possible links to ethnographical, historical, applied art and fine art collections of various Hungarian museums
b) Ukrainian folk dances: a series of activities and community dance events focusing on traditional Ukrainian folk dances, movement language, and their survival in contemporary culture; possible links to ethnographical, historical and dance collections of various Hungarian museums
c) Ukrainian music, singing and folklore: a series of activities and events focusing on traditional Ukrainian music and singing, with a particular outlook on Cossack songs of the Dnipropetrovsk Region, folk tales, and legends; possible links to ethnographical, historical, musical and literary collections of various Hungarian museums
d) Ukrainian feasts and religion: a series of activities, events and workshops focusing on the most important Orthodox Christians feasts like Easter and Christmas, the liturgical activities, gastronomical connections like baking traditional Easter bread, and handcraft actions like pysanky egg painting tradition; possible links to ethnographical, historical and ecclesiastical collections of various Hungarian museums
e) Ukrainian gastronomy: a series of activities, talks and cooking workshops focusing on authentic Ukrainian dishes like borscht, varenyky, nalysnyky, kapusnyak, holubtsy, Kyiv chicken and Kyiv cake; possible links to ethnographical, historical, and touristic collections of various Hungarian museums
Five short movies shot during the project implementation highlight the Ukrainian cultural tradition in focus and record the process of each collaboration, meanwhile the audiovisual documentation also help the international dissemination and implementation of the project results. All the movies come with English subtitles.
3. Pilot projects evaluation workshop
During the two-day long evaluation workshop the participants present the results of each pilot project to discuss the methodology developments and project achievements. They share the community building experiences and also the unique ways in which the Ukrainian cultural heritage element in focus became preserved. They may share questions and possible difficulties to find solutions and integrate them into the online project result publication.
4. Issuing the online project result publication with adaptation guide
A three-lingual (Hungarian, English, Ukrainian) online project results publication summarizes the most important experiences and methodologies developed during the implementation of the pilot projects and trainings. It also contains an adaptation guide, which helps cultural professionals in the implementation of similar programmes all over the world.
5. International conference
At the end of the project we organise an international conference to present the results to the cultural specialists of Hungary and the countries working with displaced persons from Ukraine. The aim of the conference is to introduce the project, to share the experiences and good practices on how a community collaboration linked to museums can help to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage of displaced persons.
As elements of further dissemination a project sub-page on our website will be designed from where the three-lingual online project result publication will be downloadable for free. We will use the EPALE platform for international communication. The communication channels (website, social media, newsletter) of the Museum Education and Methodology Centre (MOKK), operating as the directorate of the Hungarian Open Air Museum help inland dissemination of the project results. Hungarian museum professionals will be reached via members and newsletters of the Hungarian museum coordination network and inland museum conferences.
