Olha Filonchuk
Visual artist, theater stage, costume,
and puppet designer
I became a theater stage designer 13 years ago after my graduation from The Kyiv Academy of Decorative Arts and Design after 6 years of study in embroidery, costume design, and traditional Ukrainian art.
I worked with different theaters in Ukraine and abroad, and created more than 50 performances as a stage designer. In 2019, I became a co-founder of the independent Baby Theater in Kyiv, an immersive theater for kids 0–5 years old.
After the large-scale russian invasion of Ukraine, my life completely changed, I moved to Germany fleeing the war, and the topics and forms of my work changed as well. I started to explore the topic of forced migration, issues of national and cultural identity, human-nature relationships using documentary data and work with oral history, the format of photo collages, documentary art books, and installations.