This November, Ukrainian designer and architect Victoria Yakusha presents her latest installation, SHUM, at the renowned Salon Art + Design 2025 in New York. The work continues her ongoing dialogue between human and nature, silence and resonance, matter and spirit — a theme that defines her design language.
“Shum,” meaning noise in Ukrainian, is interpreted here not as disturbance but as a natural pulse — a vibration that flows through every material, every breath, every grain of clay and beam of light. In this immersive installation, Yakusha transforms sound into space, inviting visitors to experience the hum of existence through form and texture rather than words.
“Noise is not chaos,” says Yakusha. “It is life itself — the echo of what connects us all. In SHUM, I wanted to make that presence visible, tangible, alive.”
Inside the installation, each object becomes a vessel of vibration. The sculptural PLYN Armchair, VOLYKY Benches, Tree Stump Tables, and Grun’ Floor Lamps form a landscape of organic silhouettes that seem to grow from the ground. Crafted by hand from clay, wood, metal, and wool, they reveal the intimate language of natural matter — rough yet graceful, imperfect yet complete. Light travels across their surfaces like wind over earth, awakening quiet tones and shadows that shift as the viewer moves.
Created together with Ukrainian artists Diana Demianenko and Ksenia Kravtsova, SHUM is not merely an exhibition but a meditative environment. It blurs the boundary between art, design, and ritual. Each piece is a conduit — a presence rather than an object. The air hums with quiet energy, and the stillness carries a soft tension, as though the space itself were breathing.
Yakusha describes SHUM as a continuation of her philosophy of live minimalism, which seeks authenticity in raw materials and emotional simplicity. It is minimalism that feels human — warm, grounded, tactile. Rather than perfect surfaces, she celebrates traces of the hand, the rhythm of craft, and the dialogue between time and creation.
“When I work with clay or wood, I don’t want to control them,” Yakusha explains. “I want to let them speak. Every crack, every uneven line is part of their voice.”
This poetic understanding of design has become Yakusha’s signature. Through her creative practice and her sustainable brand FAINA, she redefines the relationship between contemporary aesthetics and ancestral memory. Her work has been shown across Europe and the United States, and her approach — merging tradition, tactility, and presence — has earned recognition in international media including Dezeen, Wallpaper, and Architectural Digest.
With SHUM, she extends this vision into the realm of sound and stillness. The installation becomes a sensory field where noise turns sacred, silence becomes audible, and design transcends function. It is an invitation to slow down, to sense the life inside matter, and to rediscover the invisible rhythm that underlies all things.
“In every piece, there’s a breath,” Yakusha reflects. “In every silence, there’s movement. SHUM reminds us that the world is never still — it’s always speaking, if only we choose to listen.”
