RIBBON International and Mystetskyi Arsenal Announce Grant Recipients of MUSEUM FUTURES

RIBBON International, in collaboration with Mystetskyi Arsenal and Art Arsenal Community NGO, announces the expansion of MUSEUM FUTURES, with grants awarded to 10 institutions.

Focused on content development and professional growth, MUSEUM FUTURES was launched in November to support museum teams confronting the challenges posed by Russia’s war in Ukraine, strengthening the longevity of their collections and spaces while developing tools that connect visual art collections with diverse audiences.

Considering the high quality of submitted proposals and their importance in protecting cultural resilience during Russia’s full-scale invasion, RIBBON International has expanded the support provided by MUSEUM FUTURES, increasing the total program funding from $150,000 to $180,000. Individual institutional grants will include 10 awards, ranging from $10,500 to $13,500 each. This funding has resulted in a selection of 10 exceptional projects, which will be supported by RIBBON in partnership with Mystetskyi Arsenal and Art Arsenal Community. The winning proposals will use the funding to help ensure institutions, curators, and artists are able to research and develop concepts and content for the presentation and exhibition of their visual art collections (digital, print, and live, in Ukraine and internationally), providing a necessary tool to achieve tangible results that can be used, adapted, or scaled by other museums. As a further supplement to this grant program, Mystetskyi Arsenal will also organize educational and community meetings to foster communication and solidarity among the program’s grant recipients.

The jury included representatives of RIBBON International, Mystetskyi Arsenal, and Art Arsenal Community, and two independent experts from diverse backgrounds, their expertise ensuring each of the over 60 submitted applications was reviewed with the highest level of care and consideration.

The jury members comprised:

• Natalia Dziubenko, Head of the Department of Applied Museology at the State Natural History Museum of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
• Bozhena Pelenska, Program and Operations Director at “Insha Osvita”
• Anna Pohribna, Deputy Director for Programs at Mystetskyi Arsenal
• Iryna Bilan, Head of Art Arsenal Community NGO
• Olga Zhuk, Curator and Grant Program Manager at RIBBON International

Through MUSEUM FUTURES, RIBBON International reaffirms its commitment to strengthening the foundations of Ukraine’s cultural landscape. The winning institutions cover a range of disciplines, including art, local history, photography, film, natural science, industrial cultural heritage, and museology in university education.

Full list of projects supported by the MUSEUM FUTURES Grants:

• Ilya Repin: pro et contra by NGO “Kyiv Cultural Initiative” in cooperation with the National Museum “Kyiv Art Gallery” (Kyiv)
• ART.NATURE.MUSEUM: Art Collection of the National Museum of Natural Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, by the National Museum of Natural Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv)
• Industrial Heritage of the Mykolaiv Region, by NGO “RUM” (MyArt platform) in cooperation with the Mykolaiv Regional Art Museum, the Mykolaiv Regional Museum of Local Lore, and the Museum of Shipbuilding and Fleet (Mykolaiv)
• IN THE BREAK: Ukrainian Painting of the 1980s–1990s from the collections of the Sumy and Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museums, by the Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum in cooperation with the Sumy Regional Art Museum (Khmelnytskyi)
• Archive of Ukrainian Photography: “Ukrainian. Photographies”, by NGO “Ukrainian Photography” (Kyiv / international)
• Anatol Petrytskyi: Rediscovery, by the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema of Ukraine (Kyiv)
• Oleh Sokolov’s collection, by NGO “Art Workshop ‘Bloom’” in cooperation with the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art (Odesa)
• To Tell the Collection: An Educational and Digital Discovery of the Museum Collection of the Ukrainian Catholic University, by the Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv)
• ArtSvit Gallery Collection: Online Archive, by Charitable Foundation for the Support of Art “Artsvit Gallery” (Dnipro)
• Research on the concept “In the Name of the City” (preparation of an exhibition project), by NGO “Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Foundation” in cooperation with the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Art (Kyiv)

RIBBON International is a not-for-profit platform supporting historic and contemporary Ukrainian arts and culture in the form of exhibitions, artist commissions, public programs and grants. RIBBON International runs through Ukraine by way of its railway system and aims to provide support to the endangered legacies of Ukraine’s cultural and artistic heritage, as well as to artists, cultural producers, contemporary culture and institutions.

Mystetskyi Arsenal is a leading Ukrainian cultural institution that brings together various arts and cultural practices — from contemporary art to literature and museum work. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Mystetskyi Arsenal has concentrated its efforts on several key priorities: protecting, preserving, and communicating Ukrainian cultural heritage; amplifying the Ukrainian voice on the international stage; fostering reflection on the human and societal condition in times of war; and providing a space for shared experience, resilience, and overcoming the consequences of war in Ukraine.

Art Arsenal Community is a public organization founded by the staff members of Mystetskyi Arsenal in April 2022 to support the development of Mystetskyi Arsenal, the Ukrainian cultural sector as a whole, and its individual and institutional actors. Since 2024, Art Arsenal Community has been a partner of the program “Room for Heritage”, providing sub-grants and mentoring support to organizations in the cultural sector.

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