Main image: ZDW 26 Presence Kyiv Design Week by @Nora Dal Cero
This autumn, Kyiv Design Week is presenting the exhibition “Presence” as part of Zurich Design Weeks — a project bringing together Ukrainian designers and multimedia artists around a simple yet fundamental question: what does it mean to be present?
This is the fourth Ukrainian project presented by Kyiv Design Week as part of Zurich Design Weeks. At the same time, it brings contemporary Ukrainian culture into dialogue with one of Zurich’s most distinctive historic spaces — the Wasserkirche.
- Organiser: Kyiv Design Week
- As part of: Zurich Design Weeks 2026
- Venue: Wasserkirche Zürich, Limmatquai 31, Zürich
- Dates: 17–27 September 2026
- Curators: Anastasiia Biletska, Andrii Kapalb
- Spatial architecture and graphic design: Kateryna Leontidu
- Supported by: Wasserkirche Zürich, SüdKulturFonds, Studio Leon.
This year’s theme of Zurich Design Weeks, “OUT OF…”, became the starting point for the exhibition’s curatorial concept. OUT OF suggests outward movement, transition, transformation and a departure from familiar forms and states. But before moving “outwards”, the exhibition invites visitors to stop and consider: where and how are we present today? In our time. In our own bodies. In the space around us. On Earth.
The exhibition features works using natural and organic materials, sound, video, light, textiles, ceramics, wood, metal, earth, straw and scent. Participants include Joseph Virts, decorkuznetsov, Atelier Dasha Tsapenko, Smyth & Winken, Tetiana Shaleva (Rugsandrugs), Alyona Shybunova, TANSKI / Verdandi Lab, Kseniia and Yurii Ryntovt, RYNTOVT DESIGN, Yelyzaveta Rudenok, Olha Denysova, Polina Moroz and Lidia Kolchenko.
“Presence” is a site-specific installation created in dialogue with the architecture of the Wasserkirche. It explores connections between people and nature, material and memory, technology and the living environment. The exhibition also addresses what remains invisible: absence, traces, interdependence and connections that continue to exist even when they are no longer physically present.
The exhibition creates a sensory environment in which visitors can listen, observe, experience scent, and touch materials and spatial forms.
Spatial scenography — “Three Gardens of Memory”
The exhibition space is organised around three architectural forms — greenhouse-like domes that metaphorically become three gardens of memory.
This is not the first time curator Anastasiia Biletska has worked with existing forms as ready-mades, reinterpreting their functions and transforming them into scenographic elements within a larger architectural setting.
A similar approach was used during Kyiv Design Week in Kyiv in 2024. At Mystetskyi Arsenal, from 28 August to 4 September 2024, as part of the theme “Design to Unite / Unite for Positive Change”, a military tent was incorporated into the exhibition as an independent scenographic element. It created an interior space for displaying more than 40 objects by Ukrainian designers and creatives as part of the “Design of Freedom” installation.
Forgotten Garden
This section features aerial sculptures and a lamp from the Aeria Garden Project by decorkuznetsov, the studio of Kateryna and Valerii Kuznetsov.
Atelier Dasha Tsapenko presents objects made from mycelium that evoke invisible underground networks, interdependence and interaction within living systems, as well as the story of the Garden of Eden — Eve, Adam and the Serpent.
Nearby is the Endless Movement Project video installation by Smyth & Winken. It presents the complete collection of videos accompanying a series of kinetic sculptures created between 2020 and 2026. Strange moving forms resembling imaginary insects appear to inhabit this forgotten garden, bringing it back to life through movement.
Magic Garden
This section presents works by Yelyzaveta Rudenok, aka Doinshapes — a chair and stool from the new Living Structure collection — alongside the scent Petrichor by Tetyana Kulminska, aka TANSKI / Verdandi Lab.
Its damp, earthy aroma, reminiscent of the smell released by the ground after rain, evokes an almost physical memory of this fleeting moment.
Childhood Garden
The Childhood Garden is a space of personal memory, where natural forms become design and memories are transformed into material objects.
The works presented here include the Pollen lamp by Polina Moroz; Blumenmantel (2026) by Lidia Kolchenko, created especially for the project from paper and flowers collected by hand during the summer of 2026; and ceramic flower-vases from Olha Denysova’s Les Fleurs series.
Earth — matter, memory, territory
Another important theme unfolds at the centre of the exhibition: Ukrainian soil as matter, memory and territory.
A glass display case contains TERRA (2016), a collectible sculpture by RYNTOVT DESIGN, created by Kseniia and Yurii Ryntovt from Ukrainian chernozem and clay.
“Walk the Earth like you whisper” — RYNTOVT DESIGN’s signature principle — expresses an attentive and delicate approach to the earth as living matter. An ecological approach to design is combined with a conceptual reconsideration of how we perceive the land: RYNTOVT DESIGN raises the earth’s horizontal plane into a vertical position, strengthening its symbolism and highlighting its social significance.
In Ukrainian culture, land is more than territory: it is a source of sustenance, a bearer of memory and a foundation of belonging. In TERRA, it becomes a material expression of this connection to a particular place, landscape, past and future.
Nearby, the textile object TERRA 006, a rug by Tetiana Shaleva (Rugsandrugs) from the studio’s debut Terra Ukraina collection, creates a landscape reminiscent of a Ukrainian field of ripe wheat within the exhibition space.
Rising from it is Alyona Shybunova’s aerial sculpture Spiral — a light, almost weightless form suggesting movement and transition between earth and sky. The work was created using the traditional Ukrainian technique of weaving Christmas “spiders” and was made especially for this exhibition.
Water — information, memory, the passage of time
A separate sonic and visual dimension of the exhibition is created by a work devoted to water by young Ukrainian artist Joseph Virts.
This audiovisual piece brings to life memories of the past directly connected with the Wasserkirche. Historically, the church stood on an island in the middle of the river. The city later absorbed the island, incorporating it into its urban fabric.
The artist turns to the flow of the Limmat — the water that once separated the island and defined its spatial structure. The two screens showing the work are positioned on the side of the Wasserkirche where this waterway once flowed.
Here, water appears simultaneously as a physical element, a metaphorical carrier of memory and a wise witness to time — a medium that moves, preserves traces, carries information and constantly changes form.
At the end of the work, the artist leaves visitors with a simple message:
“Whatever happens, everything will be alright.”
The exhibition is open to visitors from 18 to 27 September 2026, daily from 12:00 to 18:00, except Mondays.
A special programme of meetings and curatorial events will also take place as part of the exhibition. The full programme is available online.
