Gunia Project | Ukrainian Artists Reinterpret their Artisanal Heritage

About the Gunia Challenge

GUNIA Undertaking is an Ukrainian model of outstanding interior goods & accessories centered on crafts and sizeable decor — it expands and rethinks common craftsmanship as a result of effort and imagination. The founders are two Ukrainian designers, Natalia  and Maria Gavryliuk. 

Their principal target is to protect Ukraine’s national values and notify the earth about the country’s beauty in a present day way. Impressed by their ancestors’ deep and prosperous cultural heritage, Natalia and Maria make ceramics, glass, homeware, and extras.

The key philosophy of the manufacturer is not to restrict by itself.

The brand wishes to interpret the Ukrainian heritage in many sorts and without having boundaries.

For occasion, they create candles, sculptures, carpets, and jewelry. Also, Gunia produces educational content by way of social, shares data about artisanal crafts, and is planning to extend the variety of actions even more in the long run.

The brand name takes advantage of folks crafts to encourage and utilizes classic society to generate designer solutions.

Ukrainian Heritage

Ukraine has a extensive cultural potential, stuffed with wealthy traditions and cultural manifestations, regrettably predominantly unfamiliar to most men and women.

Therefore, 1 of the principal aims of Ukrainian manufacturers is to distribute accurate information about their countrywide masterpieces, by overturning stereotypes and existing artificial perceptions. 

GUNIA Task is amongst the makes that intention to change the global sights about our nation fashioned in the earlier and clearly show its new and fashionable existing. From time immemorial, several stereotypes have collected all around Ukraine GUNIA Venture attempts to influence human ideas about Ukraine and alter them.

The primary compass of the brand’s get the job done is the modernization of artwork and supplying a second daily life to individuals neglected items and meanings. With its cautious solution to resurrecting traditions in design, GUNIA Project develops a lifestyle of caring for crafts, components, and traditions, nurturing aware use and emotional attachment to items.

About the Founders 

The founders and art administrators of GUNIA Challenge — Natalia Kamenskaya and Maria Gavrilyuk labored together for a extended time in the manner business and, in 2019, joined forces to create GUNIA Project.

The central eyesight drives the imaginative duo to generate the long run impressed by the greatest tactics of the past and its modern day interpretation. 

The 1st item launched underneath the model name was the Hutsul wool coat gunia, handmade in the Carpathians. It is in honor of this product that GUNIA Undertaking received its identify.

Artists

Ukraine has a abundant and ancient culture of handicrafts, thanks to the country’s deep background and the artists that have entangled that account into their masterpieces with their individual arms. GUNIA Job supports Ukrainian artisans and revives historic Ukrainian techniques to uncover the underexplored globe of Ukrainian craft for men and women intrigued in artwork and its roots and for aesthetic connoisseurs.

The look for for artists specializing in exceptional procedures is a really responsible procedure. Nevertheless, the founders put together cautiously and under no circumstances limit the intent of the hunt simply because they usually discover even more than just proficient individuals. They generally uncover a perfect addition to the crew, a interesting story powering it, or an inspiration for the new selection.

All through the brand’s journey, the GUNIA Venture staff has labored with different tactics to develop multiple merchandise. Among them are the guta glass, ceramics, gunia’s, and textile objects.   

Tempered glass

Just one of the distinctive approaches is the production of Guta glass which then requires the variety of suave homeware. It is typically manufactured in the Carpathiansthe mountainous region in the Western aspect of Ukraine by a particularly one of a kind method. Everything is done delicately by hand to create solutions of the correct shape, then coloration is included. 

It is really worth noting that glass has its characteristics. Hence, it is quite hard to operate with, so the craftsmen can rightly phone themselves correct artists as they have a set of certain approaches and procedures of handbook processing of glass in a incredibly hot point out that are rather complicated to replicate.

Ceramics

Building clay dishes or ornamental products is a meticulous multi-step method into which artists commit all their know-how and encounter. In Ukraine, ceramic plates historically applied by Ukrainian housewives were manufactured by hand and embellished with hand-painted ornaments and styles. GUNIA borrowed and tailored the plan to the contemporary world, generating items that can appear terrific in the kitchen and when utilized as decor. 

Such dishes can come to be a correct jewel in the house, including a contact to the age-aged working experience of our ancestors. The GUNIA Job founders developed distinctive types inspired by Ukrainian stained glass, antique towels, and Ukrainian folklore.

Gunia weaving

The most legendary issue for the brand name is a conventional Hutsul fur coat identified as “gunia”, woven from sheared sheep’s wool referred to as gunia. Which is the place the brand name arrived from. 

Making these a fur coat requires quite a few months and is accomplished solely by hand. Gunias ended up worn as work clothing when persons tended to sheep in the mountains. The artists with excellent technology and expertise emphasize that producing gunia wonderful and lush is critical. Just about every detail in this fragile perform is important, particularly generating yarns on ancient important musical devices using systems handed down from more mature generations.

Textile

The founders’ launch of the initial collection of ornamented silk scarves by GUNIA Job was in 2018, encouraged by Ukrainian embroidered towels of the XVIII century from the archives of the Ivan Honchar Museum.

The 1st Gunia Collection

When making ready the initial assortment, Maria and Natasha proven an unavoidable and close relationship with other arts — portray, icons, woodwork, and ceramics. Scarves and bandanas of the brand built of silk and wool embellished with ornaments based on naive folks paintings or ceremonial getaway sewing are all handmade and stand out with a exceptional shade palette.

Wickerwork

In Ukraine, there are total villages where the main action of the inhabitants is wickerwork. In historical occasions, the whole family members took section in this process. Each individual item is a exclusive creation that displays the author’s temper, talent, and character. The strategy of wickerwork is really magical, in particular the specific planning of slim cane or total vines for weaving. The artists make a basket with their personal arms and place soul into every single merchandise, which generally usually takes a total day of difficult do the job. 

GUNIA Challenge reveals us consistently that every thing made by the artists is usually particular and exclusive mainly because it has its vitality, background, and soul. Masterpieces of wickerwork, filled with important content, could grow to be a talisman for any household.

GUNIA Task is a manufacturer that has absorbed traditions, customs, and artistic heritage and turned these masterpieces into modern day components of our life. The large top quality and individual character of just about every solution are of the essence. 

Unquestionably, the energy of each and every nation is in its primary record, and people who emphasize and support this with their creativity, like GUNIA Challenge, are entitled to particular emphasis and admiration.

Uncover all the collections and Store on the Gunia Job site >