A pottery workshop will be opened in the Uzhgorod open air museum

Uzhgorod Skansen – the Transcarpathian Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Life – will soon have another attraction.

The Uzhgorod Skansen project "Traditions of Transcarpathian Ceramics" has won a grant from the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. Its implementation will allow to revive one of the oldest crafts of the region – pottery. Therefore, a potter’s workshop will be set up on the territory of the Transcarpathian Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Life in one of the premises of the old tavern. Its opening is planned to be held during the Pottery Festival. 

The second part of the project involves the preparation and printing of a catalog of pottery products from the collection of the museum "Vilkhivska potters". It will represent one of the most well-known centers of pottery crafts in Transcarpathia – the village of Vilkhivka, Irshava district. Another publication is intended for the children’s audience. It is "The Potter’s Alphabet", which will introduce the youngest visitors of the museum to the basics of the pottery crafts in Transcarpathia, the main types of traditional dishes and elements of its decoration using colored illustrations and specially prepared text.

At the end of the project it is planned to hold a seminar "Problems of preservation and popularization of traditional pottery", opening of the exhibition of pottery products from the museum collection and presentation of the released publications…

– The project "Traditions of Transcarpathian Ceramics" is intended to increase the interest of the local population in pottery as one of the most important aspects of the traditional folk culture, – the director Vasyl Kotsan says. – The arrangement of the pottery workshop will create around it a permanent creative space for children and adults that will promote educational activity and popularize the traditions of folk pottery.