Impact case study database

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Donovan’s research has engaged heritage professionals, creative communities, and broader audiences in the UK and Ukraine (1) to enlarge museum and archive collections in Ukraine, (2) to develop new methods, practices and resources in the heritage industries, (3) to generate new cultural artefacts and ways of thinking that inspire creativity, and (4) to shift public perceptions of industrial history and heritage among regional communities in the UK and Ukraine through public engagement events and media work.

1. Enlarging museums and archive collections in Donbas, Ukraine

Donovan’s research has uncovered a rich and largely overlooked archival record relating to the history of Welsh labour migration to Donbas at the end of the nineteenth century at the Glamorgan Archives in Cardiff. On the basis of this finding, Donovan was able to establish a partnership between project collaborators, Glamorgan Archives (GA) and the Donetsk Local History Museum (DLHM), which led to the transfer of over 1,000 archival documents relating to the history of Hughesovka from the GA to the DLHM in 2019. The DLHM lost most of its archival holdings during the ongoing war in Donbas and has faced serious curatorial challenges since its relocation from Donetsk to government-controlled Kramatorsk in 2014. The transfer, made possible by Donovan’s research at the Glamorgan Archives, allowed the DLHM to enlarge its collections relating to the foundational period of industrial development in the region (S1). The transfer attracted considerable attention from the Ukrainian media and, as the Director of the museum explains, “ it had an enormous impact on the museum…allowing us to integrate historical narratives from both parts of the region divided by military conflict” (S1). International collaboration on Donovan’s project also provided the museum with the leverage to make a successful application for a Ukrainian Cultural Fund grant in 2020 (S1).

Donovan’s research has also brought to light a detailed visual record of Soviet industry, from marginal archives and museums across Donbas, currently threatened by de-industrialization . This research has resulted in the collection, processing, and cataloguing of 975 photographs and videos housed at vulnerable archives across Ukraine. These digitized materials are now stored at partner institutions in Donbas and are accessible to broader publics via the Centre for Urban History of East Central Europe’s Urban Media Archive ( https://tinyurl.com/y4hjjeey). The newly digitized materials were presented to public audiences during a “Home Movie Day” in Lviv on Nov. 6, 2020, in Kopernik Cinema Palace. The event was attended by 50 people (numbers were limited because of social distancing) including young creatives, established Center for Urban History’s audiences (people interested in urban heritage and history) and families of video amateurs who had shared their collections. As the director of CUH affirms, Donovan’s research: “ has brought to public attention a historical record of industrial life in Donbas that until now was inaccessible, significantly enlarging Ukraine’s cultural archive and heritage legacy” (S2).

“Home Movie Day” in Lviv on Nov. 6, 2020, in Kopernik Cinema Palace

1. Developing new methods, practices and resources in the heritage industries of UK and Ukraine

Donovan’s research has demonstrated the potential of inter-regional collaboration and knowledge exchange to respond to the challenges of de-industrialization. On the basis of this finding, she worked closely with heritage professionals and creative communities in post-industrial regions across the UK and Ukraine to realise the following outcomes: a) the creation of 2 international networks (one for heritage professionals and one for creative practitioners) for the innovation of creative responses to the shared challenges of de-industrialization; b) the publication of an entirely new collection of sector-specific reference materials and training resources for museum professionals and heritage practitioners (12 critical texts and 5 translations) on popular Ukrainian-language websites sharing expertise and knowledge about questions of industrial heritage adaptation and re-use; and c) the organisation of 5 training seminars and 3 networking workshops with 60 people (heritage professionals) in the UK and Ukraine, in which participants shared expertise and knowledge on topics such as collaborative methods, engaging marginal heritage collections, and innovation in exhibition practice.

This work has resulted in new practice in the heritage and creative industries in the UK and Ukraine. The creative director of a Welsh arts charity, Peak: Art in the Black Mountains, who participated in one of the workshops wrote that “ [this experience] made us consider how we include international perspectives in our work and how we interpret and explore Wales’ connections with other countries and cultures. Proactively developing our international networks is now an aim within the Peak strategic plan” (S3). The project manager of the Donbas Studies programme at IZOLYATSIA: Platform for Cultural Initiatives, Kyiv, who attended project seminars in the UK and a workshop in Ukraine wrote: “ seeing how things work in different national contexts, including in the UK, has helped us develop new and exciting tools for approaching our own industrial history and heritage in ways that engage communities and make the most of our rich cultural assets” (S4). The collaborative approaches modelled in the workshop were taken up by the manager and used in IZOLYATSIA’s “Landscape as a Monument” residency programme in 2020.

Participants at project workshop in Kyiv, Ukraine (June 2019) and visitors at the exhibition in Sieverodonetsk, Ukraine (July 2019)

1. Generating new cultural artefacts and ways of thinking that influence creative practice

Donovan’s research exhibition, co-created with her research partner, Stefhan Caddick, has uncovered a rich and largely overlooked history of Welsh labour migration to Donbas at the end of the nineteenth century. The exhibition underpinned further collaborations with an artist practitioner and musician in South Wales leading to the following outcomes: i) a participatory artwork, Enthusiasm, collaboratively produced by Donovan and a Welsh artist practitioner, exploring Welsh labour migration to Ukraine through photography, music, performance, and community crafts, carried out at Red House in Merthyr Tydfil in August 2017; ii) an audio-visual installation by a Welsh musician for the 1931 silent film Enthusiasm: A Donbas Symphony by Ukrainian director Dzhiga Vertov, which was staged live for the first time in Merthyr Tydfil in 2017 for an audience of 112 people (local residents), and screened for audiences in Edinburgh (57 listeners) and Durham (257 visitors); Donovan’s research has revealed the potential presented by the cultural heritage of industrialization for generating new ways of thinking that influence creative practice. For the project “De-industrialization and Conflict in Donbas,” she worked with artists and heritage practitioners in Ukraine to innovate creative responses to the challenged faced by post-industrial communities. This work formed the foundation for 3 new creative projects (all carried out by project partners): iii) the coordination by Art Residency +/- of 3 documentary film screenings in Lysychansk and Sieverodonetsk as part of the DocuDays UA International Human Rights Film Festival, the largest international festival of documentary film in Ukraine; iv) a multi-media art project working with Google Maps and archival film to explore the pre-industrial landscape in transition of the Donbas steppe; v) an exhibition of urban photography produced in Sieverodonetsk by a Scottish photographer, which was displayed in Taste café in St Andrews for three months in 2019 (footfall over 100 people per day) and hosted on the website of IZOLYATSIA in Kyiv (S5).

1. Shifting public perceptions of industrial history and heritage through sustained engagement in the UK and Ukraine

Donovan’s research exhibition, co-researched and co-curated with Stefhan Caddick, brought to light the little-known history of Welsh labour migration to Donbas at the end of the nineteenth century. Public engagement events organized around the exhibition took place in four venues in the UK and Ukraine (Red House in Merthyr Tydfil, June 2017; Durham Miners Hall, May 2019; IZONE Gallery in Kyiv, June-July 2019; Art Residency +/-, Sieverodonetsk (Donbas), July 2019; Top Place in Slovyansk (Donbas), Sept. 2019: 5,063 people in total). The exhibition was covered in long reads in The Telegraph (circulation: 317,817) , BBC News (438,000,000 viewers per week) , BBC Ukraina (Russian and Ukrainian versions), BBC Wales, and Radio Svoboda (752,000,000 visits in 2020). Donovan also discussed the research in radio broadcasts for BBC Radio Wales (2017) Radio 3’s Free Thinking (2017, 2019) (2,130,000 listeners in the first quarter of 2020) and the Vesti22 (2018), the Siberian branch of the Russian state news agency (S6). The public events and press coverage increased awareness of the research across the UK and Ukraine, managing to reach audiences in culturally marginalised regions of these countries for whom the topic is most relevant, including traditionally difficult to engage communities, such as teenagers, jobseekers, and pensioners.

Exit questionnaires and testimonials at the public events revealed that the research had altered audience perceptions of migration between the UK and Eastern Europe: “ I always presumed people came to the UK to work, rather than moved away” (S7, p.3); “ Never realised there was so much migration to Eastern Europe at a time when so little seemed developed there” (S7, p.40). In follow-up interviews, it was revealed that these shifts in perception resulted in more significant changes in personal and professional trajectories. One volunteer at the Enthusiasm festival in Merthyr Tydfil, where the historic migration from Wales to Ukraine was linked to issues of contemporary migration from Eastern Europe to the UK, explained that the event had prompted her to learn Polish, which had benefitted her with her career in midwifery (at the time of writing there were no Polish midwives in the area and a large Polish-speaking population) (S8). In Ukraine, the exhibition helped shift negative stereotypes about Donbas. According to the director of the DLHM: “ the history of Welsh colonization in the exhibition is one of the narratives which helps to overcome the negative stereotypes of the region and to show its hidden diversity and historical richness” (S1).

Exhibition materials were then used by Peak: Art in the Black Mountains, a local arts charity that works with disadvantaged schools in South Wales, to coordinate a creative writing workshop with 8 people (pupils) at Deighton Primary School, Tredegar in 2018. A school-teacher present at these events noted: “ the very strong impact of using ‘real’ history, drawn from their own location, as a tool for generating thoughtful debate, exploring complex ideas and for inspiring imaginative, empathetic and expressive writing” (S9, p.2). On the basis of this successful experience, Peak has used social history as a creative engagement tool across all its projects, including its Caban Sgriblio creative writing and film project with partner schools in the South Wales Valleys (S3). The workshop also formed a pilot for subsequent work with Welsh schools. In July 2020, Donovan was contacted by People’s Collection Wales about, and then developed, a set of teaching resources that would broaden understanding of the Hughesovka topic to be housed on Curriculum for Wales Humanities Area of Learning and Experience (Hwb). As the Learning Officer at People’s Collection Wales testifies, these resources “ provide an entirely new perspective on the history of Welsh colonialism and radically revise our understanding of Wales’ contribution to Russia’s industrial development” (S10).