FAINA: The Shape of Vitality & Drevo

FAINA: The Shape of Vitality & Drevo
Presented in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute of America
On view: June 26– July 10, 2025
Ukrainian Institute of America | 2 E 79th Street, New York, NY 10075

This summer, the Ukrainian Institute of America hosts FAINA: The Shape of Vitality & Drevo, a two-part exhibition by Ukrainian architect, designer, and artist Victoria Yakusha, founder of the live design brand FAINA.

Named one of the 50 most influential women in architecture and design by Dezeen, Yakusha is internationally recognized for her deep connection to Ukrainian cultural heritage and her contemporary, emotionally resonant forms. Her works have been exhibited at Milan’s Salone del Mobile, Design Miami / Basel, PAD London, and are part of significant international collections.

Bringing together a decade of creative evolution with a new body of work, this exhibition invites viewers into a world shaped by memory, presence, and the vitality of form.

The Shape of Vitality: A Decade Retrospective

Spanning over ten years of design, The Shape of Vitality gathers FAINA’s most iconic pieces — a living archive of forms that reflect the brand’s vision of design as a conduit for emotion, connection, and life itself.

Each object is charged with presence. The SONIAH floor lamp rises like a beam of light — a sculptural symbol of renewal. The KUMANEC vases echo the joyful silhouettes of Ukrainian pottery. The fluid lines of the PLYN armchair channel the quiet motion of water and being. And DOMNA, one of FAINA’s most emblematic forms, grounds the viewer in ancient rhythms that endure.

Vitality flows through these works — a quiet pulse that moves through each object, connecting the visible to the unseen.

Drevo: Ancestral Memory in Steel

Presented alongside the retrospective, Drevo continues the exploration of cultural memory through a powerful new medium.

Drevo — Ukrainian for “tree” — is a collection of engraved steel panels rooted in the ancestral symbol of the Tree of Life, once painted by Ukrainian women on the clay walls of their homes. These symbols were protective and sacred, filled with intention.

Taken from ethnographic sketches from the Podillia region, Yakusha reinterprets traditional motifs — spirals, birds, branches — with precision and reverence. Each line is engraved by hand using metalworking tools, transforming these once-ephemeral gestures into lasting forms.

Every panel in Drevo carries a traditional Ukrainian woman’s name, honoring the generations of women who painted their strength, care, and identity into domestic spaces. In Yakusha’s hands, these works are not relics — they are living vessels of memory, spirit, and feminine power.

Together, The Shape of Vitality and Drevo offers a meditation on presence — what we inherit, what we carry forward, and how form becomes a language of connection across time.