Reviving the Arts Academy: New Beginnings
The Mikhail Boychuk State Academy of Decorative and Applied Arts in Kyiv, damaged by missiles, will be revitalized within five months with the help of UNESCO.
This news was announced during the signing of a memorandum between UNESCO, the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications, and the Academy.
UNESCO will finance and organize the restoration work. The organization has already signed a contract with a technical expert who provided a report for further actions.
The Academy will provide access to the premises and issue necessary permits for the restoration. The aim is to complete the work within five months.
During the event, the Minister of Culture noted that on this day, May 12, 1954, Ukraine joined UNESCO, which has been supporting the country since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
"This memorandum is special because we are not only restoring a cultural object but also an educational one. By working with educational institutions, we invest in the future of Ukrainian artists and youth who wish to continue contributing to Ukrainian culture," said Kiara Decci Bardeschi, the head of the UNESCO office in Ukraine.
The Academy was damaged on March 25, 2024, as a result of a Russian strike. Several rooms were completely destroyed, and others suffered partial damage.
According to the Academy's rector, Olena Osadcha, archives were housed in the room hit by the shell.
"This was the golden fund of the Academy, containing works mainly in decorative arts: sacred painting, iconography, stained glass, mosaics, textiles, embroidery, and costume modeling. We hope to save some of our works, and if not, it will be a direct testament to the Russian genocide against Ukrainian culture," she added.
The Mikhail Boychuk State Academy of Decorative and Applied Arts, founded in December 1999, is a leading institution for arts education.
Notable Ukrainian artists contributed to its establishment, and works by its students and faculty are housed in museums across the globe.
The Academy is named after Mikhail Boychuk, a prominent avant-garde artist, innovator, and reformist educator who shaped Ukrainian identity and preserved folk art traditions.
Boychuk is one of the most significant figures in Ukrainian modernism, yet one of the least known, as he, his wife, and nearly all his students were executed by Soviet authorities in the late 1930s, and their artistic legacy was destroyed.
