For this episode we are in Lviv and visiting the Jam Factory Art Center. This new space in an old and run-down suburb of Ukraine’s western city has been in the making for years. Now it has become Lviv’s most fashionable centre for contemporary artists both from Ukraine and beyond, and has the ambition to become the country’s premier exhibition space.

Creating such a massive area for visual and performative art in an old industrial space has proven to be a challenge. However, for the Jam Factory team, nothing seems to be impossible, especially when they have the help of founder and Swiss cultural entrepreneur Harald Binder.

John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub for Central and Eastern Europe, meet the Jam Factory’s Executive Director Bozhena Pelenska in Lviv. Artur Wabik from Kraków’s Comics Museum also joins us for this episode.

Throughout the episode we’ll be finding out more on the Jam Factory as well as take a tour of this new state-of-the-art centre.

We’re in the centre of Lviv to visit UA Comix – a comic book store, as you might have guessed from the name. But it’s so much more than that. In fact, you could say that comics are now helping the Ukranian war effort against Russia.

Bohdan Kordoba is the founder and CEO of UA Comix. Even though it has always published comics and graphic novels, the full-scale invasion by Russia has meant that more and more publications are geared towards Ukrainian language and culture. We also hear from Ruslana Koropatka, Editor-in-Chief of UA Comix, as well as artists Lyudmila Samus and Khrystyna Koropetska.

Presented by John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków.

Assistance for heritage during times of war has been a leitmotif throughout the Ukraine Heritage Spotlight podcast series. In this episode we look closely at the activities undertaken by non-governmental organisations, including those bringing physical support for heritage institutions endangered by ongoing Russian attacks.

Iryna Nikiforova offers us an insight into current heritage matters – organisation, management and networking. Nikiforova is deputy head of the Initiative for St. Andrew’s Passage NGO [Andriyivsko-Peizazhna Initsiatyva] and coordinator of Ukraine Art Aid Center based in Germany. Since March 2022, the organisation has been providing assistance to museums and cultural institutions of Ukraine. We met during her visit to the offices of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków.

December 2022 marked the reopening of the Slovak National Gallery after major reconstruction. A large part of exhibition premises were closed for more than twenty years due to their derelict condition, and construction works took almost seven years.

Bratislava has now regained one of its most iconic buildings for art and culture, as well as a meeting place for residents and tourists. The bold socialist modernist structure designed by Vladimir Dedeček in 1977 stands out clearly on the banks of the Danube. It is commonly referred to as the “Overbridge”, an elevated three-storey bridge optically closing the baroque Water Barracks from the street side and forming an inner courtyard.

Our guide to the newly opened building of the main Slovak museum is Dr Alexandra Kusá, its general director and a specialist in 20th century art. Through the perspective of this spectacular architecture we look closer at the contemporary capital of Slovakia, asking what still needs to be done in Bratislava and Slovakia in broadly understood heritage?

Hosted by John Beauchamp together with Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków.

How has the concept of heritage changed over the decades? We take a look at best practices and approaches to heritage preservation with Professor Jacek Purchla, Vice-President of Europa Nostra. We met at the Heritage Hub in Kraków in June 2024 on the occasion of the announcement of the European Heritage Awards.

Hosted by John Beauchamp together with Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków.

Physical damage to Ukraine’s cultural heritage is very real. Official figures from UNESCO dated 10 April 2024 reveal verified damage to 351 sites since 24 February 2022, including religious sites, museums and monuments, as well as other heritage sites.

For the inaugural episode, I’m in Lviv, Ukraine’s western gateway, where we meet leading cultural figures to learn what is being done to preserve – and save – Ukrainian cultural heritage in light of the continuing conflict with Russia.

Lilia Onyshchenko-Shvets is advisor to the Mayor of Lviv on heritage protection. We meet her in her office near the old Arsenal in downtown Lviv. “We were absolutely not prepared for what happened on 22 February,” she says of the outbreak of war. “We simply didn’t think it could happen” she says of the full-scale Russian invasion.

In the podcast, we also hear how Vasyl Rozhko from the НеМо: Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab is systematically assessing damage done to Ukrainian heritage, including information which may be used for criminal proceedings against the Russian Federation.

Dr. Iryna Sklokina is a Research Fellow at the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv. In 2023, her project – Un/Archiving Post/Industry – won an Europa Nostra heritage award in the category “Citizen Engagement and Awareness Raising”. She explains how the war has raised awareness among Ukrainians of their cultural heritage.

In Lviv’s opulent Potocki Palace I meet with Taras Voznyak, director of the Lviv National Art Gallery. He explains the situation of museum collections across the country and what is being done to protect them.

We also visit the Ukrainian Catholic University. It’s here where leading Ukrainian historian, Professor Yaroslav Hrytsak explains what’s at stake for the Ukrainian people.

One of the most important activities in heritage research is not just looking at the past, but recording the present for future generations of citizens and scholars. This is exactly what Dr Iryna Sklokina is doing from the Center for Urban History in Lviv.

One of the centre’s projects is „Un-archiving Post-industry”, which digitally preserves endangered industrial heritage collections in Ukraine’s East and fostering engagement with this heritage among local communities.

Collaborating closely with local archives and heritage practitioners, the project digitised collections at a number of museums in Ukraine, including Mariupol, Pokrovsk and Donetsk. It’s also worth noting that the project won a Citizens’ Engagement prize at the 2023 Europa Nostra Awards.

Hosted by John Beauchamp together with Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub for Central and Eastern Europe in Kraków. Recorded in Lviv, April 2024.

W 2023 roku historyczne centrum Lwowa zostało wpisane na Listę światowego dziedzictwa UNESCO w zagrożeniu. Decyzję Światowego Komitetu wymusiła trwająca od lutego 2022 roku pełnoskalowa inwazja wojsk rosyjskich na terenie Ukrainy. Choć Lwów jest położony daleko od frontu, od początku wojny w tym regionie zniszczone zostały trzy obiekty dziedzictwa.

Jak dzisiaj wygląda sytuacja zabytków we Lwowie, partnerskim mieście Krakowa? Jakie przygotowania przed atakiem zbrojnym zostały w mieście poczynione? Jakie są wyzwania, potrzeby, plany? Aby się tego dowiedzieć, udaliśmy się w kwietniu 2024 roku w podróż za wschodnią granicę.

Naszą przewodniczką jest Lilia Onyshchenko-Shvets, doradca mera Lwowa ds. ochrony dziedzictwa kulturowego, w przeszłości główna konserwator Lwowa.

Idąc na spotkanie mijamy pomniki zamknięte w ochronnych klatkach, kościoły z oknami witrażowymi zasłoniętymi płytami z dykty, worki z piaskiem na chodnikach i jeże przeciwczołgowe w każdej chwili gotowe do rozstawienia na ulicach. Spotykamy się w Miejskim Biurze ds. dziedzictwa przy ul. Wałowej. W historycznym budynku dawnych koszarów zeskładowane są drzwi, ławy i inne elementy wyposażenia z okolicznych kościołów i zabytkowych budynków.

W rozmowie z Johnem Beauchamp i Katarzyną Jagodzińską, kierowniczką regionalnego centrum Europa Nostra w Krakowie – Europa Nostra Heritage Hub, Lilia Onyshchenko-Shvets mówi nie tylko o sytuacji Lwowa, ale odnosi się do całej Ukrainy oraz wskazuje na różnice między wschodem i zachodem kraju.