Ukrainian National Pavilion «The Garden of Living Things»

The Garden connects generations, preserves memory, and links the underworld, earthly and heavenly worlds. It is a symbol of growth. In the earthly Ukrainian garden, you can hear the rustle and echo of the sacred garden, the paradise of the forgotten homeland of humanity.
However, the Garden also keeps artifacts – witnesses and participants in the history of the Ukrainian people. Each piece of the artifact is no longer just a household item; it is a thing with a whole cosmos inside it, endowed with its own soul.

During the war in Ukraine, in a house wholly bombed by Russian missiles, a small kitchen cabinet survived, with a fragile ceramic jug on its shelf, defenseless against the explosion. It became one of the symbols of Ukrainian resistance to the aggression of massive nuclear power. Each such thing holds a whole world and can tell a story if you know how to listen to it and how to talk to it.

The art objects created by Ukrainian scenographers are located in a single installation space of the pavilion. Each of these objects involves a certain interaction with the viewer, each telling its own story.

The critical question is, what trace and heritage will we leave behind? What stories will the artifacts behind us tell? 

The design of the main space was developed by the scenographer and curator of the pavilion Bohdan Polishchuk.

Pavilion director— Yulia Glushko
Scenography gallery director— Oleh Oneshchak.

The artists participating in the exposition:

Prague quadrennial of performance design 2023

The Ukrainian pavilion “Garden of Living Things” was named so for a reason. A garden is a deeply sacral concept imprinted in the consciousness of Ukrainians. With its fertility, generosity, and colourful enthusiasm, Mother Earth represents its beauty and grandeur to the world and being the essence of the aesthetic program of Ukrainians with its spatial scale and diversity, it manifests by itself and cherishes the freedom and will of the nation. The strength of the nation’s invincibility, its ability to protect own land and revive despite all circumstances lies in the figurative depths of Garden’s drawings… read more