Round 1 | Artisan Support Fund Jury
We may lose battles and territories. We may be destroyed by the millions, but we will rise without fail if preserve our cultural identity. From culture as from stem cells, one can regenerate all that is lost or damaged.
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Yaryna Vynnytska is a Ukraine-based writer, publisher and cultural activist. As a student she demonstrated during the ‘Granite Revolution’ of 1990 successfully demanding, among other points, the resignation of the chairman of the Ukrainian SSR. She holds bachelors degrees in English philology, psychology and a postgraduate dissertation in psycholinguistics.
Vynnytska is the author and creative producer of the large-scale art project “Kovcheh Ukraine”, which was launched in 2020. The project combines traditional Ukrainian musical masterpieces with contemporary experimental music. “Kovcheh” means “ark” which symbolizes the preservation of Ukrainian heritage for future generations. Vynnytska organized the cooperation of ~200 participants from all over Ukraine: the band "DakhaBrakha", "Kurbasy", the men's choir "Dudaryk", the Kyiv girls' choir named after Mykola Lysenko, Serhiy Zhadan, Polish singer Dominika Chekun. The Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine under the leadership of Oksana Liniv also participated in the project.
In 2021, the Ministry of Culture marked the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's Independence with Vynnytska’s festival “Kovcheh Ukraine: 10 Centuries of Ukrainian Music.”
Vynnytska was nominated for the 2022 Shevchenko Prize for the "Ukraine Kovceh” project.
Art captures the warm touch of the hand and the spirit of its maker in physical and abstract forms. It is a way to discover and construct an identity and through it, communicate with the world. It is not only a medium for processing the present moment, but also a way to see the future.
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Alyona Ponomarenko is a Kyiv-based journalist, lawyer and supporter of the Ukrainian arts. Due to the war she currently lives in Ivano Frankivsk.
She holds a master's degree in International Economics and Law from the Kyiv National Economics University and spent numerous years building a legal career. With the support of her family she transitioned to a creative career in the glossy pages of fashion journalism.
Since the founding of Vogue UA over 10 years ago, she writes about beauty, travel and all things Ukrainian - a job she loves because it allows her to discover and document incredible stories to share with others. She is passionately proud of her Ukrainian identity and about sharing her culture with the world.
Craft gives visual language to social and emotional trauma. Craft allows both the practitioner and the person who experiences and encounters the object a space for reflection and connection.
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Tanya Crane is a Southern California native. She is a Professor of the Practice in Metals at the School Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. Crane’s work is framed within a dual existence of prejudice and privilege having adapted to life amongst family in both the white suburbs and the urban center of South Central, Los Angeles. Craft has become a conduit between these two worlds and has provided me the framework in which my current work is centered.
Crane’s work embodies the many layers of human existence. These include history, race, class and culture. Coming from the perspective of an African American woman, she uses community and inclusiveness as a magnetic beacon to diversify and expand ideas, understandings and codifications.
Crane was a 2022 Artist in Residence at Indigo Arts Alliance, Portland, Maine. She exhibited her work in a solo exhibition at the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, Tennessee in 2018. Crane's work is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Stewart Program for Modern Design in Montreal, Canada, Yale University Art Gallery, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Crocker Museum and the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.
She is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
Cultural diplomacy can either counter or escalate colonization when in the wrong hands. But knowledge is power, and global appreciation and representation of a nation’s art and culture can thwart such propaganda.
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Natalia Torija Nieto is a New York City-based architecture and design historian, editor, and writer, trained in modern art, design, and material culture.
She holds a BFA in Interior Architecture from centro in Mexico City and an MA in History of Art and Design from Pratt Institute in New York.
She served as Content Director and writer at PIN–UP Magazine, and has collaborated with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, George Nakashima Studio and Foundation, Noguchi Museum, and Judd Foundation. Her written work is published in apartamento, DAMN, dwell, The Architect’s Newspaper, gestalten, T Magazine, Cultured, Gray, Stir, and Calvert Journal.
ODNA Foundation Team
Craft and design are the physical representations of a nation’s culture and values. An object’s materials, techniques symbols and forms reflect the relationships between people, time and place. Understanding craft reveals the evolving human stories that bind us together.
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Kateryna Gudziak is a Boston-based second generation Ukrainian-American. Her deeply Ukrainian upbringing - language, traditions, and community - is owed to the decades of immigrants and refugees (her grandparents included) who were tirelessly committed to sustaining their culture abroad.
She holds MSMS and MBA degrees from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. She also holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she founded and led her department’s student organization and spent time working at the Ukrainian Museum in New York City.
ODNA Foundation reflects the intersection of three dimensions of her identity: design, business and cultural heritage. She is passionate about breaking stereotypes and introducing others to a different ‘side’ of Ukraine.
She is currently a Consultant in the Boston Consulting Group.
Culture is a nation’s an invisible armor and connecting force. It protects people’s spirits through times of terror and suffering. Through art people can process trauma, search for solace, send a message, give meaning, and define individual and collective identity.
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Sophia Panych is a beauty journalist and digital content strategist living in London. Currently the head of beauty content at luxury e-retailer FARFETCH, her career began at Allure magazine in New York City where she started as an editorial assistant and worked her way up to the brand’s digital beauty director, helping to develop the brand’s online editorial presence.
Sophia holds a BA in art history from New York University and has been immersed in the arts from a young age. Growing up in a Ukrainian-American household, she was surrounded by traditional art and music, and was enrolled in Ukrainian folk dancing, a casual weekend activity that led to pursuing a career in ballet — entering a pre-professional program and attending summer intensives across the US. She continued to dance while in college and even after she pivoted careers and entered the world of magazines — performing and teaching with Syzokryli Ukrainian Dance Ensemble in New York for 15 years. Sophia still performs today, most recently with Podilya Ukrainian Dance Ensemble in Manchester, England.
