Victoria Yakusha

Exhibited at DESIGN MIAMI. 2023

Created exclusively for the The Book of Love fundraiser for the Books & Books Literary Foundation, this limited-edition print features Ukrainian designer Victoria Yakusha’s original artwork inspired by Vasyl Barka’s Zhovtyi Kniaz (The Yellow Prince).

According to Yakusha: “As Ukrainians face ongoing campaigns to erase our culture and history, honoring our heritage becomes all the more urgent.  Vasyl Barka’s haunting novel captured the horrors of the man-made famine in the 1930s that killed millions of Ukrainians. In turn, this image features an abstraction of my VOLYK bench, from the Stepping on Ukrainian Soil collection, which celebrates Ukrainians’ deep connection to the land through animal-like forms. VOLYK  is derived from the Ukrainian word for freedom. The concept behind VOLYK was to craft something life-affirming and pure in its nature, resulting in a series of animistic creatures with a free-spirited character."

All proceeds benefit the Books & Books Literary Foundation’s urgent fight for the right to read.

About Victoria Yakusha:

Victoria Yakusha is an award-winning, Ukrainian-born architect and designer whose practice is deeply inspired by Ukrainian culture and traditions. She is a charismatic global ambassador of Ukrainian design and culture, which she champions through her roles as the founder of both YAKUSHA studio and the FAINA design brand.  Her work has been included in several prestigious publications, including Dezeen, Design Milk, Designboom, Archdaily, Vogue. She has exhibited work at prestigious events around the globe, including Milan Design Week, Dutch Design Week, London Design Fair, Design Miami/, and more. In 2019, Victoria opened a residential gallery in Brussels. That same year, Victoria was named Interior designer of the Year in Ukraine (Elle Decoration Awards), and her interior practice was named one of the five best offices of the world (Dezeen Awards).

About Zhovtyi Kniaz (The Yellow Prince) by Vasyl Barka : 

First published in 1962, this title—which was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize—depicts the horrors of the 1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine. The novel is based on the personal memoirs of Vasyl Barka (1908-2003), and recounts the course of the Holodomor (also known as the Great Ukrainian Famine), a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine that claimed the lives of millions of Ukrainians, and was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930-1933 that affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union. The novel only became available to readers in Ukraine after the dissolution of the USSR.