The first Forum of Oral History of Ukraine will be held in Kyiv on the initiative of the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation

On October 10, 2023, an offline meeting of Ukrainian and international documentation initiatives, the Forum of Oral History of Ukraine, will be held for the first time in Kyiv. For security reasons, the time and exact location of the Forum will be announced later.

The Forum is an initiative of the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, which has been documenting first-person testimonies of civilians about the war for more than five years and has already collected more than 80,000 testimonies.

The main goal of the initiative is to create and deepen connections in the community of institutions and professionals documenting the experiences to record and preserve the history and truth of the ongoing war. At the same time, the main goal is to tell the world about the truth of the war. To create a field for multidisciplinary dialogue, cooperation and unification of documentary initiatives about the war.

The main topics of the Forum:

— roles and functions of oral history projects during the war; existing approaches to documentation of war experiences;

— "pain points" in such documentation;

— the role and significance of the Ukrainian experience of documenting war experiences for world practices;

— formation of narratives about the war and politics of memory; the role of the state, society, and institutions in these processes;

— what to do with large arrays of collected data? What might the future archive of war look like? How can international experience help Ukraine?

— how to talk to international audiences about the war?

— what could be the future of the Ukrainian field of documentation initiatives and the principles of cooperation in it?

Representatives of educational, state and independent institutions of Ukraine and the world; museums of history and national memory; Ukrainian cities affected by the war, as well as documentarians are invited to participate in the Forum.

The event is open for partnership and cooperation. Participation in the Forum is free and possible with prior registration and confirmation from the organizers.

Registration is available at https://forms.gle/UB8Z1c8LaZ56Nnpt8  and is open until October 8, 2023.

For press accreditation issues, please contact Olha Nosyk at [email protected].

For registration and additional questions, contact Volodymyr Kapustin at [email protected].

An online broadcast is planned during the Forum of Oral History of Ukraine*.

Follow the news of the Forum - https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/news.

Every story is important. To preserve memory for a better future, tell your story on the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation portal https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/en/ or on the free hotline 0 (800) 509 001.

*Broadcast details will be announced later.