The Sixtiers Museum was created upon the initiative of a non-governmental organization with the same name. The initiative was spearheaded by two Ukrainian political prisoners, Nadia Svitlychna and Mykola Plakhotniuk, who had served lengthy sentences in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the museum's archival collections are comprised of the private materials and papers of Ukrainian sixtiers, collected both in Ukraine and in emigre communities. The permanent exhibition displays artworks of talented painters, sculptors, graphic designers, artists, literary scholars, poets and others, who were part of the sixtiers movement in Ukraine. It also includes samizdat written and published by them, an extensive library of Ukrainian and international works, manuscripts, unique photographs of this dynamic group, as well as artifacts, handicrafts, and material objects from hard labor camps in Siberia. In total, the collection amounts to more than 30,000 items and continues to grow.