Svitlana Volkova

Biography

Svitlana was born in Kherson in 1991. She graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 2017 with a degree in Folklore Studies, Ukrainian Language, and Literature. Additionally, during her school years, she received education in tailoring. In 2023, she completed a short educational course at Polimoda University in Italy.
Since 2009, she has been actively involved in social cultural movements. In 2015, she curated the "Fashion" direction of a cultural and educational project for teenagers in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions called "Open Ukraine." In 2019, she founded the brand Svitla Volka Design, specializing in transformative agender clothing. On February 24, 2022, she left Kherson and has not returned home near the Antonivskyi Bridge since. The brand's activities have been on hold since May 2022. Subsequently, Svitlana transitioned to artistic activities, creating a series of digital collages titled _Sensitive content covers me_ in response to Instagram's content obscuring policies related to Ukraine. She explored 3D tools and designed a collection dedicated to the defenders of Azovstal, partially presented at Digital Fashion Week NY.
Currently, she continues to work as a digital artist and fashion designer, using art as one of the means of social activism. "While digital fashion loses the utilitarian and protective functions of clothing, its significant sense remains the ability to represent statements and transform ideas."

Works

Liminal. 3D sculpture, AR

Svitlana Volkova, continued her research between folkloristics and digital fashion, and immersed herself in the search for new magic to protect Ukrainian identity through collective memory. The author created a three-dimensional digital sculpture in the form of a traditional bear mask from the Malanka Christmas Carnival, filled with content that should be in everyone's memory and at the same time ward off encroachment on our cultural identity. The project, called Liminal, outlines the threshold that gives us the opportunity to reincarnate in order to undergo initiation into a new state, a new identity, avoiding death. The work is available as an AR mask on the Instagram network for a collective experience.