Stitching the Sky is a long-anticipated exhibition by Dariia Kuzmych in collaboration with her mother, artist and textile master Svitlana Selezneva. The show combines textile and mosaic art and centres on the image of the open sky as a symbol of freedom—both of the body and spirit—from physical threat and authoritarian narratives.
Dariia and Svitlana began working together on their biographical work Diploma Thesis in 2018. Since then, their co-creation has developed alongside their individual practices, embodying the continuity of joint action and the value of ‘stitching together’ fractured space and experience.
The choice of fabric as the primary material—with its inherent softness and plasticity—is no coincidence for them. Both artists are equally engaged in the process. Svitlana’s exceptional craftsmanship and her intuitive, even performative, approach to textiles reveal the depth and visual complexity of the medium. Meanwhile, Dariia, in dialogue with her mother, brings to light its spatial and political dimensions.
The exhibition narrative refers to three historical time dimensions, depicted in two works. The first is an easel mosaic created by Dariia in 2015 while studying at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. It is a free copy of an element from a mural by soviet-russian artist Alexander Deineka, originally created in the repressive 1930s for the moscow metro. Conceived and completed during the second year of russia’s war against Ukraine, the red aeroplane at the centre of the composition became, for Kuzmych, an embodiment of a threat returned from the past.
In the fourth year of the full-scale invasion, Dariia and Svitlana completed a new work that references the original mosaic composition but radically reinterprets its narrative. It is a multilayered installation in which the lightness of textile contrasts with the weight of smalto and cement. Manipulations with the properties of fabric reinforce the image of a sky that, though torn and reassembled, remains free.
Dariia Kuzmych comments: “In 2025, we disarm the winged arrows of the heavy sky that seeks to crush everything, and we stitch the sky anew—restoring its innate lightness as a space for imagination and thought. We liberate the occupied hours-eternities of the airspace. Red—like a wound on the heavens’ body—this aircraft falls to the ground.”
The exhibition at the gallery space on Reitarska Street is complemented by works from recent years, displayed at The Naked Storage on Zolotivoritska Street.
