Dana is a multidisciplinary artist and architect whose work seamlessly merges art and architecture, creating immersive experiences that explore the intersections of culture, heritage, and technology. Born and raised in Kyiv, Dana draws inspiration from her upbringing in a family of architects and anthropologists, as well as her passion for Ukrainian culture and history. Her journey in the creative field began with a deep fascination for symbols, mythology, and hidden spaces, which eventually led her to pursue two architectural degrees and embark on a diverse range of projects.
Dana's work reflects her commitment to her community and her exploration of alternative public spaces, revitalization of forgotten architectures. She has curated exhibitions, designed exhibition sets, and worked on site-specific installations that engage with the context and history of each location. Her approach combines conceptual and functional elements, resulting in visually striking installations that provide unique sensory experiences for viewers.

Notably, Dana's work also extends to the digital realm, including her involvement in the MAUER-HOMES x ONCYBER project, which combines elements of architecture, design, and NFT technology to create a virtual memorial. Through her use of digital assets, Dana aims to preserve and commemorate historical events, engaging with history and heritage in a new and interactive way.

Hello Dana! Before we delve into your work, could you introduce yourself and your journey in the creative field?

I am from the space, raised in Kyiv in a family of architects and anthropologists. The powerful women in my family have inspired me greatly. I would spend hours in our home library sketching gods from Aztec civilization, reading about Ancient Greek mythology, and exploring the dictionary of symbols. I also discovered local Ukrainian culture through ethnographic expeditions. My grandmother Tamara always nurtured my imagination and curiosity about the universe through endless urban drawing sessions.

One day, she told me something very important: 'By becoming an architect, you will be able to do whatever you feel like.' This concept has influenced me throughout my life, leading me to pursue two architectural degrees. I studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv, Ukraine, and later at the National Architectural School in Nantes, France.

The revolution of Freedom in 2013 and the beginning of the war in Ukraine marked the starting point of my multidisciplinary practice. I embarked on a series called 'Modeling Reality,' which involved creating virtual dimensions by combining significant 3D elements from the revolutionary periods of 2013-14.

I believe that my ideas have become inseparable from my political commitment to my community along with my openness to others. I am passionate about the potential of monuments, ruins, hidden spaces, modernist heritage, as well as queerness and the underground. My initial projects focused on creating alternative public spaces and revitalizing communities through ephemeral symbolic architecture. Later, I worked on revitalizing forgotten iconic architectures, such as the largest Ukrainian film archive, the Dovzhenko Centre. Since 2017, I have been involved in exhibition set design, collaborating with HR Giger, Kyiv Biennale, PinchukArtCenter, Mumok, Alserkal Avenue, and Galeria Labirynt. These experiences have connected me with the universe of contemporary art and curatorial practices, leading to collaborations with artists on common statements and the production of interdisciplinary projects.

The emergence of a strong Kyiv electronic music scene, includingCloser, Brave Factory, and Otel, had a significant impact on my practice. I began producing large-scale installations, exploring the notion of water, and co-curating the first Extraordinary Queer cabaret called 'Magic Infant' in Kyiv as part of the ICKPA festival, alongside Alina Kleytman.

During the Corona times, the collective aspect of my work manifested in the creation of an experimental exhibition space in a former abandoned pavilion. It was reborn under the slogan 'From modernist water-pump of the 1990s to a contemporary art space' and curated by the group Wet Hole (Alina Kleytman, Nikita Kadan, and myself). The main focus of this space, called Dzherelo, is to showcase contemporary video art, performance, and experimental music, open to the public 24/7. These provocations in public space, using architectural and artistic tools, reflect my interests. When the full-scale war began, we created a digital platform, https://dzherelo.online/ , and organized a series of traveling events in safe spaces for free expression, such as Documenta 15, MeetFactory, and C.Rockefeller Center.

The invasion in my country has had a dramatic impact on our entire community. To fight against these dark times, I have started exploring new horizons in Germany and Mexico. The desire to produce against destruction has led me to work more with mediums such as digital architecture and site-specific design.

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Your work often explores the intersection between art and architecture. Can you talk about your approach to merging these two disciplines and how they inform each other in your practice?

For me, these two disciplines, art and architecture, are inseparable, probably since childhood. When it comes to design, I always consider its conceptual and functional perception, its past, present, as well as the desired future. I feel like I was trained as a site-specific creature. The existing context activates my artistic vision and prompts suitable spatial solutions and materials. Each project I undertake starts with the formation of a personal attitude referring to the history of the local spaces.

An interesting example of this intersection is reflected in our joint project with the METASITU collective in Dubai at Alserkal Avenue. This public art commission is a mixture of “anarchy”, “architecture” and “total installation”. We transformed the building known as Nadi Al Quoz into a ruin folly, drawing inspiration from the architectural typology popular in 18th and 19th-century Western garden traditions. In this project, we propose architecture as a process rather than a finished object. By deliberately creating a symbolic ruin of the 21st century in Dubai, we explore the cycles of ruinification, ecological footprint, returns, and alternative urban models.

I do believe that the future lies in the intersections of media that can activate public discussion, train memory, and offer a multi-layered reading of history.

Can you describe your approach to site-specific installations and how you work with the specific context of a location in your projects?

Each place is unique and carries its own history, social dynamics, environmental factors, and political aspects. I dive into the space with my thoughts and fall in love with it as a living organism. While analyzing the specifics of each location, I turn to its background, the people who shape it, and the current issues it faces. As I begin to think and feel like the space itself, ideas for its future scenarios start to unfold in my mind. Only through complete immersion in the context can I form a new understanding, highlight its identity, and create an alternative social dynamic by employing unique volumetric shapes or programs.

The functional-conceptual approach can be expressed through various mediums and forms. I have also worked with the temporal occupation of spaces, revelation of the invisible, the activation of industrially abandoned and the alternative scenarios for the iconically public. My installations provide access to new experiences, expand perspectives, and hypnotize the public with their extraordinary nature.

I also enjoy incorporating interactive elements into my installations. For example, during electronic music festivals held in factory sites, I mostly used water as a key material. People bathed in a lake formed by a geyser, picked wet tangerines from trees, refresh themselves with a fountain, and took drinking mini water bottles from a repurposed metal cage in circular shapes…”

As I went to through your work, I noticed that you have undertaken numerous installations and curatorial projects. In the context of these endeavors, how do you approach the design of a sensory experience for the viewer, and what key elements do you always consider?

In each project, I always try to provide a unique experience for the viewer. The foundation is the space itself, digging the context and reflection on the actual issues.
My alter ego is a mouse. I dedicate a lot of time to traveling and meeting different audiences. I often, receive books to read like the latest ones “Unsorcery” by Alina Popa, Florin Flueras , “The Mushroom at the End of the World” by Anna Tsing and “Nos cabanes” by Marielle Mace. These books help me explore new concepts.
There is no unifying approach, work in public is a challenge to write new stories and shape strong visual statements in the coordinate systems that always change. Kosmina universe is queer, cross-disciplinary pushing the boundaries of the existing by collaborations and multimedia tools.

You often engage with issues of cultural heritage and preservation (your work for the at 59th Venice Biennale is an example that comes to mind) Can you talk about the significance of these themes in your work and how you approach them conceptually and aesthetically?

In my practice, I began as an architectural activist in 2017 and became a member of the Save Kyiv Modernism movement. Since then, I have been using various methods to protect iconic spaces and monumental arts from possible deconstrustion. For instance, I co-organized exhibition programs in futuristic buildings like the UFO on Lybidska and Zhytniy Market, and launched a clothing line called 'Modernist Uniform'. These temporary actions led me to co-create a permanent art space by repurposing a postmodern pump room that had been abandoned for over 20 years in the city center. Collaborating with the curatorial group 'Wet Hole,' we developed an experimental program for 'Dzherelo,' showcasing alternative methods of preservation.

Observing the transformation of the urban landscape, it was important for me to find special approaches that could influence the preservation of those vulnerable layers of history that are at risk of disappearing. With the onset of full-scale invasion, the question of protection took on a new scale, as more than 60 cultural sites have already been damaged. This pushed me to employ visual methods of relocating spaces or elements into other safe contexts that could conceptually communicate with each other.

During the 59th Venice Biennale, as I was designing the Ukrainian pavilion at 'Piazza Ucrania,' I began to highlight the issue of cultural heritage preservation. I was impressed by the phenomenon of self-organization within society to create defensive layers around monuments in public spaces throughout the country. 'Piazza Ucrania' embodies a balance of stability and fluidity. This place has a centre and a regular structure, but it is a constantly changing exhibition, where posters are layered on each other. Piazza is built around a symbolic monument tightly covered with sandbags — a reference to the widespread wartime practice in Ukrainian cities of protecting public art from shelling, a technique also used around monuments in Europe during World War II.
Furthermore, I continue to work with the subject of natural heritage. For example, the installation 'Neptune,' shown in Paris, raises the issue of Ukraine's access to aquatic resources. ‘Neptune’ becomes figurative — and direct. Instead of abstract geometry, the installation’s form is led by a spear сrossed with a trident: a symbol of Neptune, the god of water, as well as Ukraine. Recent environmental disaster at Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant caused by a Russian attack is an a remarkably terrifying example of the need to speak about “russian war-aqua crimes”.

This summer, in collaboration with Oleksiy Say, we will present the third monument in this series, 'Phoenix,' during the Burning Man festival. This site-specific sculptural work will be burned, emphasizing the resilience and strength of Ukraine as it rises from the ashes.

Given that your work with MAUER-HOMES x ONCYBER involves the creation of a virtual memorial using NFT technology, I'm curious to know your perspective on the potential of NFTs in preserving and commemorating historical events. How do you see NFTs contributing to the remembrance and understanding of significant moments like the Berlin Wall, and what opportunities do you think this technology brings in terms of engaging with history and heritage in the digital realm?

Rethinking and communicating history through digital optics offers both great potential and risks. The freedom of interpretation that comes with historical events can be accompanied by various pitfalls.
The creation of spaces that incorporate historical elements of architecture, design, and monumental art into new digital projects holds significant potential. So far, this is a fairly new direction where it is important to build a responsible approach to broadcasting information to the viewer.

In my work, I have taken a step towards using iconic elements from the West Berlin period to shape a new memorial organism. Through the unique power of NFT technology, I have created portals that bridge the present and the past within the same cyberspace. It's really interesting how we can visually inspire the viewer with digital mediums to make them valorize the memory. Technology could help us create special meditative spaces to provide endless time to commune with history.
I want to believe that commemoration using digital assets can have a healing effect on humanity by working with diverse historical layers and cultures.”

Can you describe the process of designing and building the MAUER-HOMES x ONCYBER project? The project combines elements of architecture, design, and technology. How did you balance these different aspects to create a cohesive final product?

I was commissioned to create digital exhibition spaces that captured the spirit of both East and West Berlin during the Wall period. The context of a divided country is deeply personal to me, the design process of this project coincides with my period of exile from Kyiv to Berlin. Temporality of homes, the diversity of districts and people, helped me capture the site-specific differences and hidden stories of the actual city. My main idea was to create a new reading of architectural ensembles for East and West Berlin that referenced the past while speaking to the future.

To achieve this, I combined my physical connection to the city with three levels of research: a global perspective exploring "Life in a Divided City," an analysis of atmospheres, material combinations, lighting, and scale effects that would impact the psychology of the cyber visitors, and a library-collection of architectural, design, and monumental art elements.

After four months of study, the 3D prototyping phase was launched. I used a technique of architectural collages based on historical facts to create a unique architectural ensemble. The massive construction, spanning from the "Bunker" to the "Tower," consists of six distinctive stories that showcase cultural and natural diversity.

The "Bunker" reflects the history of the Reichsbahnbunker, constructed by Nazi Germany. The "Lobby" combines visual aesthetics from notable postmodernist architecture competitions, incorporating elements such as Peter Eisenmann's glass blocks, Aldo Rossi's bricks with green accents, and OMA. The outdoor areas are dedicated to the special wilderness of Berlin's nature. The "Studios" serve as a creative commune, featuring two floors adorned with iconic design objects from Bauhaus, Dieter Rams, Charles & Ray Eames, Le Corbusier, and custom-made neon atmospheric lighting. The "Church" draws its main architectural inspiration from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a striking landmark and monument against war and destruction. The final space, the "Tower," represents hope for a better future, tagged by magical peace symbols. On the top floor of the Tower, mystical letters speak to visitors through graffiti that reads, "Stop war.”
The Mauer project has been a truly special experience. The designed spaces, embodying the ideals of freedom, have had a tangible impact, with 51% of the proceeds going to humanitarian charities. These funds have provided aid to thousands of people from the war zone in Ukraine, raising over $500,000 in donations to date.

As an artist and architect, your work spans across various mediums and explores innovative approaches. With the rise of NFT technology, I’m curious to know your thoughts. How do you perceive the role of NFTs in relation to your practice, and how do you think this role will take shape in the years to come?

The metaverse has no wars, no physics, no weather limitations, it serves as a perfect safe space for meditation and recovery from a dense life. I am particularly interested in the psychological healing effects of digital architecture combined with audio assets.

As we are shaping it now we could influence its future according to our planet’s needs. I hope NFTs will become more socially orientated and help humanity through charity project. It is my vision that by engaging with digital dimensions, we can make our own reality a better place.