• Home
  • Topics
    • Editorial
    • Leaders
    • Around the World
    • Lasvit World of Design
    • Essays
    • Guides
  • About
  • Contact
  • Buy magazine
  • Lasvit store
  • Home
  • Topics
    • Editorial
    • Leaders
    • Around the World
    • Lasvit World of Design
    • Essays
    • Guides
  • About
  • Contact
  • Buy magazine
  • Lasvit store
Spacial Magazine

Back to the Roots

By: Eva Slunečková Photo: Zuzana Veselá, FAINA archive
#Leaders
Share on:

Peri­ods of polit­i­cal con­flict tend to be frac­tious. They raise uncom­fort­able ques­tions and esca­late ten­sions in soci­ety. This sen­ti­ment was behind the cre­ation of Vic­to­ria Yakusha’s FAINA. Through design, she was able to name the chang­ing char­ac­ter of Ukraine and the new­ly form­ing iden­ti­ty after years of sup­pres­sion. FAINA draws on tra­di­tions and brings them into the present to show the world the true char­ac­ter of Ukraine – more mod­ern and bold than most of us can imagine.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots
Vic­to­ria Yakusha is a Ukrain­ian archi­tect, design­er, founder of YAKUSHA stu­dio, FAINA brand and moth­er of four chil­dren. She lives and works between Kyiv and Antwerp.

How does the cre­ation of your stu­dio relate to the rede­f­i­n­i­tion of Ukrain­ian culture?

I start­ed FAINA after the Maid­an Rev­o­lu­tion in 2014, in Ukraine. It was a cru­cial time for us, a moment of renais­sance in terms of self-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. I start­ed to revis­it our sym­bols and crafts and incor­po­rate them into new forms in design. It felt very organ­ic and empow­ered me a lot. The world didn’t know much about Ukraine, and I was dri­ven by a desire to share our cul­ture and its beau­ty. I see FAINA as a com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple striv­ing to fos­ter soci­ety-wide activity.

One of the out­puts was an excep­tion­al event called Land Inspires, which you orga­nized in 2018 and 2019 and I was lucky enough to attend it. What moti­vat­ed you to do it?

FAINA didn’t start as a busi­ness. It was about our Ukrain­ian iden­ti­ty, val­ues, and tra­di­tions that we would like to pass on. I want­ed to do more, to show how strong and cre­ative Ukraine real­ly is, the his­to­ry we have. The right for­mat for the design expe­di­tion didn’t come to me for a long time, and one day I just had a vivid dream about it. From the sub­con­scious came the answer I had been look­ing for. For many of our arti­sans, it is the work of a life­time, passed down from gen­er­a­tion to generation. 

Their knowl­edge is ines­timable, there is tremen­dous depth behind it. So I want­ed to sup­port them, to inspire the whole world with their work and to show how their tech­niques can be revived in mod­ern expres­sion. It was an enrich­ing expe­ri­ence for both sides. To go deep, to remind our­selves of the great val­ue and his­to­ry we have. It helped our guests under­stand Ukraine bet­ter. They told me that it was life-chang­ing for them, some­thing that will stay with them forever.

Which arti­sans do you usu­al­ly work with?

We work with crafts­men from all over Ukraine. The core of our tapes­try for Design Miami/Basel was made in the Carpathi­ans. Our arti­sans used a tra­di­tion­al wool weav­ing tech­nique, and then our team added oth­er lay­ers. This was the syn­er­gy of times, an exam­ple of how tra­di­tion con­nects with moder­ni­ty. For the works in glass, we col­lab­o­rate with crafts­men from Lviv, a city in the West of Ukraine. The tech­nique of free­blow­ing is more than 1000 years old and is still used only there. Clay work is main­ly done in the Kyiv sub­urbs. Our arti­sans make ceram­ic decor for us, but also sculp­tur­al holed facades for our cabinets.

Your prod­ucts are named after tra­di­tion­al musi­cal instru­ments, sym­bols of Ukraine and even smell like Ukrain­ian clay. Why?

Ukrain­ian cul­tur­al codes and tra­di­tion­al forms influ­enced my work a lot. But it’s not some­thing I sim­ply look at and take inspi­ra­tion from. It’s already inside me, I grew up with it, and I retrans­late it into the lan­guage of my design. It is a huge part of my “live design” phi­los­o­phy. Many objects resem­ble what I used to see, the essence of the source itself stays rec­og­niz­able, but it is nev­er direct. The Soni­ah floor lamps are Ukrain­ian sun­flow­ers, but the light­ing itself is very prim­i­tive, even a bit rough in tex­ture because of the sculpt­ing technique. 

When I cre­at­ed the Ban­dura set, I first drew a sym­met­ri­cal shape of the main vase and then added a small­er one to bal­ance it. Only with the time did the mean­ing revealed itself. The Ukrain­ian ban­durists, men who played ban­dura (a tra­di­tion­al Ukrain­ian musi­cal instru­ment), went from vil­lage to vil­lage, pass­ing on our his­to­ry through their songs. They were often blind and trav­elled with guides. Uncon­scious­ly, I drew a big and a small ban­dura vase, lat­er real­iz­ing that the small one was actu­al­ly sym­bol­ic of a guide, who trav­elled with and lead a bandurist.

What mate­ri­als do you focus on?

Our mate­ri­als come from the Earth – wood, wool, clay. I do not main­tain mate­ri­als in a tra­di­tion­al way. I retell and pre­serve the tra­di­tion so it doesn’t lose its mean­ing, but do so with­in a con­tem­po­rary con­text, a new vision. I share the love for tra­di­tion in a mod­ern way.

You have also devel­oped your own sus­tain­able mate­r­i­al, Ztista, which com­bines clay, recy­cled paper, wood scraps and applied on a recy­cled steel or card­board base. What was your motivation?

Our live design phi­los­o­phy is based on work­ing with liv­ing mate­ri­als, and I want­ed to cre­ate our own ful­ly sus­tain­able mix­ture. For me as a per­son and for us as a brand, it’s very impor­tant what we leave behind. I respect the Earth, I always try to think of sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Today’s design needs an over­haul – more sus­tain­able archi­tec­ture, inte­ri­ors, prod­ucts. The tech­nique we applied for Ztista was on the sur­face. It is the tra­di­tion­al wall-fin­ish­ing method, known to all Ukraini­ans. Some­thing very native.

What can Ztista be used for?

Almost every­thing. We use it for sculpt­ing chairs, tables, light­ing. I love that the result is unique every time. There are no two iden­ti­cal objects, which makes each piece even more valu­able. Right now we are work­ing on a spe­cial art project using Ztista.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots
From 2021, FAINA has a show­room in a his­toric 500-year-old build­ing in Antwerp’s Keizerstraat.

What role and weight do you think young design­ers and researchers have in con­tem­po­rary design?

They move this world and bring a broad­er, more volu­mi­nous vision of it. It always inspires me a lot to see new per­spec­tives on what may seem well-known or obvi­ous. It’s also an ongo­ing process and the com­mit­ment we made as a brand long ago. So I am in a con­stant search-and-exper­i­ment mode. At the moment, we are devel­op­ing a ful­ly sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing for FAINA.

You oper­ate between Kyiv and Antwerp, where you also have your main show­room. How has liv­ing abroad influ­enced you?

The pace of life is very dif­fer­ent in Bel­gium. In Ukraine, we move and make deci­sions much faster. But some­times you can lose the joy of the moment. That’s what I learn from the Bel­gians – their art of slow­ing down.

How did you man­age to break into the inter­na­tion­al market?

It’s been a long jour­ney. In the begin­ning, in 2014, we were lit­er­al­ly invis­i­ble, but became suc­cess­ful thanks to the essence of the brand, the dis­tinc­tive prim­i­tive style we have formed. FAINA also has a great respon­si­bil­i­ty. We were the first to rep­re­sent Ukraine at major inter­na­tion­al exhi­bi­tions, we appeared in Vogue or Archi­tec­tur­al Digest as “Ukrain­ian design”. Year after year, we went deep­er into our craft, orga­nized work with our crafts­men, who often lived so far out that they did not even have a sta­ble net­work con­nec­tion, we devel­oped our sin­gu­lar visu­al language.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots

What was your break­through project?

Ban­dura vas­es and Top­tun arm­chairs I guess. They were the first to become pop­u­lar and got atten­tion from the glob­al press and world­wide clients.

What kind of peo­ple make up FAINA’s clien­tele? Is there any way to define them?

Very con­scious, edu­cat­ed, open-mind­ed peo­ple, for whom val­ues are impor­tant and who are look­ing for a soul in an object. They want some­thing spe­cial and authentic.

Last year at Salone del Mobile you also pre­sent­ed a new col­lab­o­ra­tion with Lasvit. Can you tell me more about it?

I have known and loved Lasvit long before, I loved the way they worked with glass and the unique things they were cre­at­ing from it. A few months before Salone del Mobile, we received a call from Art Direc­tor Max­im Velčovský with a pro­pos­al to devel­op some­thing togeth­er. We had almost no time, but impos­si­ble tasks are what dri­ves us even more. In the end, it was the fastest col­lab­o­ra­tion in the his­to­ry of their brand.

Tell us more about Sluhach.

I‘ve my own style that I work in – it’s liv­ing min­i­mal­ism. It is sim­i­lar to naive art or prim­i­tive art. In Ukraine, prim­i­tivists are very strong, it’s relat­ed to our cul­ture, our world­view. So as an artist I also inher­it­ed these fea­tures. With Lasvit, we made lamps that are very dif­fer­ent from their per­ma­nent col­lec­tion. I want­ed to cre­ate some­thing that would give the brand a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive, so the lamps come in very prim­i­tive shapes. 

But this prim­i­tivism is imbued with a deep mean­ing. A strong mes­sage is key for me in every expres­sion. Sluhach means ‘lis­ten­er’ in Ukrain­ian. But lis­ten­ing here is not in the sense of hear­ing. It is about a state of feel­ing and under­stand­ing, about knowl­edge. When you hear not what is said, but what is meant. Under­stand­ing the nature of things.

Is Sluhach your first real­iza­tion in glass?

I’ve want­ed to work with glass for a long time. Dur­ing Sum­mer Sol­stice 2021, in Paris, we pre­sent­ed a lim­it­ed series of flu­id vas­es craft­ed with the ‘gut­nyt­st­vo’, a tra­di­tion­al Ukrain­ian tech­nique of free blowing.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots

What advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages do you think glass as mate­r­i­al has?

Ini­tial­ly, I want­ed to cre­ate the light­ing larg­er, but this was not pos­si­ble because of the nature of the mate­r­i­al. In gen­er­al, glass is very liv­ing, it has a dual nature com­bin­ing strength and fragility.

FAINA’s port­fo­lio is real­ly broad – it ranges from acces­sories to fur­ni­ture, to light­ing. Do you reg­u­lar­ly design for oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers as well or are these rather exceptions?

This year, we have divid­ed FAINA col­lec­tion and my lim­it­ed-edi­tion designs, and in the future I will focus more on col­lab­o­ra­tions. When you bring togeth­er dif­fer­ent ener­gies and worlds, some­thing spe­cial always comes out.

In addi­tion to the FAINA, you also work as an inte­ri­or design­er at the epony­mous stu­dio YAKUSHA. What kind of inte­ri­ors does YAKUSHA create?

I love when an inte­ri­or is ‘liv­ing’. Nat­ur­al mate­ri­als and tex­tures, a sense of puri­ty, every object appears to be a har­mo­nious part of the space as if it’s always been there. Also, I love when the inte­ri­or is nat­u­ral­ly bal­anced, so I jux­ta­pose and com­bine a lot. New and old, big and small, smooth and rough.

How would you actu­al­ly describe your­self and your work? What is most impor­tant to you, whether you are work­ing on a prod­uct or cre­at­ing an environment?

It may sound strange but I asso­ciate myself with the Earth. Vast and pro­lif­ic. I am an archi­tect, design­er, cre­ative direc­tor, artist. I nev­er had lim­its in expres­sion. I am a huge fan of niche per­fumery and a few years ago I just felt like cre­at­ing my own fra­grance for the home. I did not know any­thing about its cre­ation process, but I knew that I want­ed it to be the scent of Earth her­self with a touch of raw, humid soil. 

The per­fume seemed very lay­ered, com­plex, I think I expressed my essence through it. All my projects reflect my world­view, how I think and what I feel. A few months ago, we start­ed work­ing on a rede­vel­op­ment con­cept for Cherni­hiv, one of the old­est Ukrain­ian cities, heav­i­ly dam­aged by Rus­sians dur­ing the war. I went into this because I want­ed to con­vey the DNA of this city, to estab­lish a sol­id foun­da­tion for its fur­ther development.

Your phi­los­o­phy could be described as “live min­i­mal­ism” and “mod­ern prim­i­tivism”. Can you explain what exact­ly the these two lines are?

Live min­i­mal­ism reflects my con­nec­tion to Ukrain­ian roots and nature and my world­view as an archi­tect. I am always drawn to clean lines, very prim­i­tive, and speak with shapes rather than with col­ors. Prim­i­tivism is pure expres­sion, min­i­mal­ism is also about puri­ty. We call our min­i­mal­ism ‘live’ because of liv­ing ener­gy. I con­nect with things or spaces only when I feel them as if they were alive. When the object tells a sto­ry, when it has a mean­ing and a soul. In my per­cep­tion, liv­ing objects are usu­al­ly made by hand, mate­ri­als come from nature. That’s what I was look­ing for in oth­er brands before I designed FAINA.

We can’t avoid the top­ic of the Ukrain­ian-Russ­ian con­flict. Does it affect you personally?

It is not a con­flict, it is a war. Rus­sians have invad­ed our land, and what is hap­pen­ing now is a true geno­cide of the Ukrain­ian peo­ple. The war is only geo­graph­i­cal­ly in our coun­try, but in real­i­ty it has long been out­side Ukraine. It is a war of val­ues, a war for the future of the whole world. I feel every event of this war deeply and painful­ly and expe­ri­ence a great admi­ra­tion for my peo­ple, their strength and courage.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots

What are the cur­rent con­di­tions for design­ers in Ukraine? Are they able to work as before?

After Feb­ru­ary 2022, almost every­one has been in sur­vival mode for 3–4 months, try­ing to put them­selves togeth­er. There was no cre­ativ­i­ty in your head at all, it was the hor­ror that fills you from the inside out. But after a while, that hor­ror turns into an under­stand­ing that you have to keep mov­ing. That’s each person’s way of let­ting life win over the death brought to our land. Maybe the life theme has not yet man­i­fest­ed itself in cre­ativ­i­ty. But I think design­ers will work with this nar­ra­tive because it is exact­ly what we exude, and it is our atti­tude, our choice, our deci­sion. It’s like our posi­tion in life. We choose to live, no mat­ter what.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots

Is it pos­si­ble to make any plans in this situation?

Ukraini­ans are encour­aged to resist by doing their reg­u­lar activ­i­ties as much as pos­si­ble. So we keep doing what we like. We pre­pare new col­lec­tions, focus on col­lab­o­ra­tions and projects on the verge of art and design. Since the begin­ning of FAINA, I felt my mis­sion to pass on and pre­serve the Ukrain­ian cul­tur­al her­itage and want­ed to build a museum. 

Even under these harsh cir­cum­stances, we have already start­ed work­ing with the Maria Pry­machenko Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion to make it a real­i­ty. I real­ly hope it will mate­ri­al­ize as soon as pos­si­ble and every­one will have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to enjoy Ukrain­ian cul­ture in per­son. For the time being, there are at least ambas­sadors of our cul­ture such as FAINA.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots

 


Vic­to­ria Yakusha is a Ukrain­ian design­er and archi­tect behind the mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary archi­tec­ture, cre­ative direc­tion, inte­ri­or and prod­uct design stu­dio YAKUSHA since 2006 and the brand FAINA since 2014. Vic­to­ria received her archi­tec­ture degree from the Pryd­niprov State Acad­e­my and the Insti­tute of Nation­al Applied Sci­ences (INSA) in France. She is deeply inspired by Ukrain­ian cul­ture and tra­di­tions, which she tries to express through design and archi­tec­ture. She has cre­at­ed her own unique style of “liv­ing min­i­mal­ism”. Her works stand out for their lacon­ic but sen­su­al approach. They are full of tex­tures that engage all the sens­es and invite you to feel the soul of the objects. Since 2022, Vic­to­ria Yakusha has been part of the Lasvit fam­i­ly with the Sluhach light­ing collection.

 

Scroll to top ↑
← Something Mesmerizing
How Strong Can Thin Ice Be →
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots
Victoria Yakusha is a Ukrainian architect, designer, founder of YAKUSHA studio, FAINA brand and mother of four children. She lives and works between Kyiv and Antwerp.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots
From 2021, FAINA has a showroom in a historic 500-year-old building in Antwerp’s Keizerstraat.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots
The Sluhach chandeliers hang above the Ztista table and chairs, which are made using a technique similar to Ukrainian valkuvannya craft. This process was once used to finish walls. Each piece of furniture is a little different thanks to the process of handcrafting it from a sustainable mix of clay, hay and other recycled materials that Victoria Yakusha developed with her team.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots
The name Sluhach, which Victoria Yakusha suggested for Lasvit in 2022, means ‘listener’ in Ukrainian. Listening here, however, does not mean to hear, but rather to understand what is heard. It is a reflection on meaning, understanding the message between the lines, the capacity for deeper understanding.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Back to the Roots

Similar articles

On Creating Sense Of Intimacy

Shadow Players

Turning Dreams Into Reality

The Elusive

Caress And Torment The Soul

Back to the Roots

Popular articles

Oasis of Light and Sound

Monumentality across Media and Sizes

In the Middle of Golden Sands

Nature In The Sky

Getting To Know The Campanas

Identity Creator

Download latest issue
Spacial Magazine
Lasvit

© 2023 Spacial Magazine

Privacy policy

LASVIT s.r.o. Komunardů 894/32, Holešovice, 170 00 Prague 7, Czech republic

Website by: Sharp Objects

Around the WorldEditorialEssaysGuidesLasvit World of DesignLeaders