Almost 3 years after the start of the war, Audrey Azoulay once again visited Ukraine to increase UNESCO's support for cultural professionals involved in the country's recovery. Most notably, she inaugurated a new national cultural institution: the Lviv Culture Hub.
The Lviv Culture Hub is located in the heart of a remarkable historic building that has been fully restored by UNESCO. This ambitious project was made possible thanks to financial support from Spain ($1.7 million). The Hub will be managed by the city of Lviv, whose Mayor also attended the inauguration.
During her visit to Lviv, Audrey Azoulay announced two additional UNESCO initiatives for Ukrainian heritage. The first, conducted in partnership with ten of the country's cultural institutions and supported by the European Union (€2.2 million), will help to safeguard Ukraine's Jewish documentary heritage. Fifty cultural professionals will be trained by UNESCO to inventory, preserve and digitize these historical documents throughout the country. UNESCO will also support dozens of artistic projects aimed at increasing the visibility of this heritage and explaining it to a wider audience, especially among young people.
The second action will involve the restoration and promotion of more than 300 works by around fifty Ukrainian women artists. UNESCO will train eighty Ukrainian professionals. These works will also be digitized and exhibited in a virtual museum accessible to all. This action was conceived as a tribute to the Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko – a museum dedicated to her life’s work having been destroyed in Ivankiv at the start of the war.
Since 2022, UNESCO has been resolutely supporting culture, education and information professionals in Ukraine in line with its mandate. To this end, the Organization has mobilized nearly $74 million from its Member States – a concrete demonstration of international solidarity.
The UNESCO office in Kyiv, which opened in September 2022, now employs over 35 experts who are implementing actions throughout the country: damage assessment, ensuring the safety of museum collections, restoring monuments, conducting remote learning, psycho-social support for students, training and equipment for journalists, etc.
Lviv has long had close ties with UNESCO. In 1998, its Historic Centre was inscribed on the World Heritage List. In 2015 Lviv became a UNESCO Creative City of Literature, and in 2024 a UNESCO Learning City.
Main Image: ©UNESCO / Yurii Yurchenko
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
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