Andrii Borutia is the Public Programs Coordinator and a researcher at the War Childhood Museum Ukraine. In 2023, he became a museum collection contributor by sharing his own story, and later that same year, he joined the museum team. Read the interview with Andrii.
How did you first come across the War Childhood Museum Ukraine?
I learned about the Museum from my current colleague Renata, with whom I was neighbors in the university dormitory. I had shared my own memory of the day my home city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk region of Ukraine was liberated from Russian occupation in 2014 on Instagram, and Renata suggested that I give an interview to Svitlana Osipchuk, the Museum’s program director.
What encouraged you to become personally involved and share your own story with the Museum?
Growing up in the Donetsk region has been a defining experience for me, shaping who I am in many areas of life—from my academic interests to my favorite football club. That’s why I decided to share my story.
What impact do you hope our public programs have — both on participants and on wider conversations about war, memory, and childhood?
It’s important to me that participants in our projects gain new knowledge in various areas of the humanities—history, culture, and the arts—and that this knowledge helps them reflect in new ways on their own and collective experiences, both past and ongoing, in Ukraine.
I also hope our projects inspire both participants and audiences to think about the agency of young people in Ukrainian society and in the history that is unfolding right now. This agency cannot be ignored. At the same time, our projects always emphasize that growing up is a very sensitive process, one that is shaped in different ways by war.
Are there any particular public programs or moments from your work that have stayed with you?
It is especially meaningful for me when I learn that participating in the IMBALANCE Lab, our collaborative art project with teenagers, has become an important factor in shaping participants’ future paths. Some go on to seek out similar projects, some make final decisions about which university to attend, and others change their field of study entirely as a result of their experience in the lab.
WCM Ukraine Public Programs
The War Childhood Museum Ukraine’s public programs aim to foster dialogue—both with the communities whose experiences the Museum documents and with colleagues in oral history, public history, memory studies, and documentation. These events also help shape the conceptual framework and guiding values of the Museum’s work.
Public programs place particular emphasis on exploring alternative media and formats to represent the experiences of young people whose lives have been shaped by the war in Ukraine.
The Museum has implemented two such programs so far.
Ozymi — a documentary theatre workshop series in which teenagers created the play Ozymi, exploring the diverse experiences of growing up amid the Russian-Ukrainian war.
IMBALANCE — a contemporary art and documentation lab for teenagers. Focusing on themes of memory, history, and the environment, participants explored how the body, movement, sound, materials, color, and space can convey personal or collective experiences. The three-month program culminated in an exhibition at the Dovzhenko Centre, where participants presented their own artistic creations.
