Permanent displays day (Olena Shevchenko, Ukraine, ITP 2025)

Written by Olena Shevchenko, Head of Archaeological Collections Management & Research Department, Odesa Archaeological Museum (Ukraine, ITP 2025)

My name is Olena Shevchenko, I work at the Odessa Archaeological Museum in Ukraine. We are already in the third week of this year’s ITP programme. When I saw what day my turn would be to write a blog post I was a little upset because I decided that it would not be a very interesting day for me. I woke up in a rather bad mood, due to a bad dream. To develop my language, I constantly listen to interesting stories in English. That morning the story was very interesting (about unhappy love), but suddenly it ended at the climax of events and there was no continuation. Thus, I never found out how it all ended.

I went to the museum with several participants, one of them was quite skilfully doing complex makeup on the go. I was shocked, because I can’t do it normally, even sitting in front of a mirror. Being in the programme with 20 people from all over the world is very interesting.

Contrary to my expectations, what the team prepared for us on this day turned out to be extremely interesting. I found a lot of interesting ideas for myself, and I noted down a lot of useful information. We were introduced to the curator of the Islamic World Galleries. This is a unique exhibition that is very different from other departments of the British Museum. Zeina Klink-Hoppe talked about her experience working with a designer, and finding the balance between telling the story of the objects and creating a beautiful display. This reminded me of the experience of my own museum, where I also had a similar situation. The designer would say: “very nice” and put the object forward, or “not nice” and demand to remove it, no matter how unique it was. As a result, some rooms in my museum, in my opinion, resemble a crockery store. It is very important to work as a team and listen to all its participants.

During the session, I was struck by a display case with small, coloured fragments of glass vessels. It reminded me of my childhood. I grew up on the outskirts of a village in the South of Ukraine. It used to be much larger and not far from my house, there were many remains of old houses. In these ruins, my sister and I looked for fragments of glass vessels, and the brighter they were, the more we were happy to replenish our collection. I guess it was then that I developed a love for archaeology.

Then we approached the display case with objects from Afghanistan, things saved by British soldiers in the 19th century after the troops of the Russian Empire destroyed these historical places. It reminded me that the descendants of this empire are doing the same thing now with the cultural heritage of my country. Centuries pass, and for some, life goals do not change. It is very difficult for me to look at exhibitions related to military actions. Sometimes I even cry, and for a long time I cannot calm myself down.

After lunch we sessions with various representatives from the Community Partnerships department. We were shown examples of various activities for children and adults. It turned out that we were all still children, because everyone enthusiastically participated in making coins from clay and building the history of Egypt.

Then we had a little over an hour to get ready to visit Her Majesty’s Theatre to see a performance of The Phantom of the Opera. Everyone was very pretty; I also wore a beautiful dress and heels (this happens once a year). Of course, I took a selfie in the mirror in the elevator.

Everyone was in a great mood. I really love this performance; it is incredibly exciting. It was nice to see the happy faces of my colleagues. Everyone forgot about their fatigue, and after the performance many went to continue the evening, or rather the night… I went to the tube with a few of my colleagues who wanted to get home as soon as possible. But on the way we took a bunch of photos, against the background of the night city. As a result, we crawled into Schafer House around midnight. These will be wonderful memories, and this day in life can be counted as three.