3D models of mass graves and destruction: exhibition about Kharkiv Oblast opens at Kyiv's War Museum

An exhibition titled Through the Darkness. The Light of Memory featuring 3D models of mass graves and destroyed sites in Kharkiv Oblast has opened at Kyiv's War Museum.

Source: Kyiv's War Museum

Details: Among the exhibits is an exact three-dimensional replica of a mass grave in the Izium district, where tortured Ukrainians were buried during the Russian occupation.

In total, 447 bodies were found in a forest near Izium. The 3D model of the tragic site was created by the Skeiron team, which specialises in heritage digitalisation.

"Mass grave near Izium. After the liberation, a place was found where people were buried without coffins and without names, often with several bodies in a single grave. The silence of this forest still speaks of what happened here.

Thanks to the city's only funeral bureau, which continued operating even during the occupation, we managed to preserve some information about the victims. The Skeiron team recreated this burial site as an accurate 3D copy so that memory would not disappear with time and silence," the digitalisation team wrote.

The exhibition as a whole consists of a body of digital data collected while documenting the consequences of the war. The exhibits include 3D models of destroyed buildings, sites of illegal detention, and mass graves of civilians in Kharkiv Oblast.

"The museum team has repeatedly worked in Izium after its de-occupation and has presented materials from the Kharkiv region in various countries around the world. We have a great public duty – to preserve, disseminate, and perpetuate the memory of these events," said War Museum Director Yurii Savchuk at the exhibition opening on 9 January.

Yurii Prepodobnyi, one of the project's initiators and co-creators, spoke about the long path to creating the exhibition.

"During the expeditions, I saw these crimes on site and understood that they could not be left merely as datasets. For more than two years now, this project has been our core focus. The Howard G. Buffett Foundation itself initiated the use of these materials in cultural diplomacy," he said.

An important component of the exhibition is the personal stories of residents of Kharkiv Oblast, provided by the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kharkiv Oblast and the Memorial Memory Platform.

"We searched for relatives, verified data, walked the streets of destroyed communities, entered empty houses. Our task is to lay the foundations of how this war will be remembered," commented Lera Lauda, head of the platform.[A hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories – ed.]

The exhibition Through the Darkness. The Light of Memory can be visited in the main building of the War Museum until 9 February.

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