23 Nov Igor Panamarchuk: “A museum should be a dynamic, open area”

Not only he runs the museum, but also strives to make changes in the field of cultural tourism in Ukraine.

A job for active people

Currently the museum “Spiritual Treasures of Ukraine” works not only as an exhibition hall: in many ways it is more of an art-space, where cultural, charity and commercial events, meetings and conferences take place. My father has founded and built this museum, but he is not able to run it because of his pressure of work. And I am an active person: I have time to run the museum and accomplish my own projects. Pressure of work can be different. When there’re no big trade fairs, exhibitions, and the building is technically in good shape, you can solve the problems by telephone, from home. But sometimes you have to spend all day long in the museum, when the assembling is being made.

Well-coordinated staff

Our teamwork is effective. Many people have been working at the museum for 10-15 years. Everybody knows each other. It’s an integral organism that constantly renovates, but remains functioning.

A Time of Changes

My arrival led to rather standard sequence of changes that usually appears during alternation of generations of top-managers. The museum’s website has been launched, the galleries have been renovated, and from just a museum the place has turned into more dynamic, open area. We launched three lower floors. An interesting contrast has emerged: upstairs – beautiful white marble halls, and downstairs – real “underground”, concrete and slabs. Now absolutely different events can be hold at the museum. And it’s very good.

A living museum

We do our best for the museum to live, to keep Igor Tarasovych’s amazing collection of icons. Money is needed to restore and study them, to maintain the building. You cannot do without commerce. It’s inseparable from non-commercial events. As a result we get some kind of a chessboard. And I like it very much, because the museum leads a full life, but in a completely different way. Expositions and ideas change all the time.

The first global project

The “DONCULT – art bowels” forum was the first full-fledged event at our lower “underground” floors. I am very excited to start our full-scale work from such a worthy project. The forum did turn out to be massive. It included concerts, presentations, public reading, performances, movie screenings, exhibitions, lectures… But, most important, it was a 100% high-principled project, and some of my colleagues wanted to bring benefit to the society, to the country at some point.

The city of possibilities

Any big city with population of over one million is open to new people, to new talents. The percentage of artists who were born here and the newcomers is, at its best, 50/50. It’s the same everywhere: in London, New York, Moscow… Any big city tries to integrate all the best from the whole country.

A traveler’s dreams

When I visit museums abroad, first of all I notice the works of art, and only then – technical issues, that are very important for any serious showroom. I tour Ukrainian museums as much as possible. And every time I see the lack of technical solutions that can make the museums more attractive for visitors. They need good informational support as well, because people can live not knowing about dozens small museums with very interesting collections. We’ve got frescoes, and 15th century churches, and medieval castles… Websites, TV-commercials, indicators, decent roads to museums – all this is the needed technical support.

Tourism and the future

I would like to create the Internet-project that would catalogue all the museums and historical objects, rate them according to number of visitors, include all the necessary information. Then it would make things easier for people, they will have a choice: for example, go to Paris or to the south of Vinnytsia Oblast. There are a lot of interesting things to see in our country – they only need to be talked about. The future is tourism. Even in Europe some countries live solely from it. Ukraine has a great potential in this area.