Current Residents Mari Kinovych
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Self-portrait
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Mari Kinovych, tapestry, 2025
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Mari Kinovych, tapestry, 2024
Mari Kinovych is a Ukrainian illustrator and textile artist based in Kyiv. She studied cultural anthropology, and this background shapes how she thinks about images — especially metaphor and symbol. Her work moves across editorial illustration, book covers, lettering, and comics, and more recently she has been drawn to tapestry weaving, where her illustration practice finds a new material form. Recurring themes in her work include gender equality, human rights, and sustainable living. Over the past few years, her attention has turned to the experience of war and the trauma bound up with colonialism.
During my USRP residency at Art Centre Salmela, I plan to develop a project exploring personal and collective healing in the context of war. This will be my first time leaving Ukraine since 2023, and the distance will give me space to reflect on how living through war has shaped me as an artist — something that is hard to process while still inside the ongoing conflict. I want to create a series of tapestries accompanied by a visual diary, working across both mediums to sit with the question of what healing can look like after profound trauma.
Olena Siatovska’s residency at Art Centre Salmela is realised in the context of the Ukraine Solidarity Residencies programme. The current partners of the programme are AARK, Art Centre Salmela, Fairres, Goethe-Institut Finnland, HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme, Nelimarkka Museum, Pro Artibus, The Finnish Artists’ Studio Foundation, The Finnish Darkroom Association, The Finnish Illustration Association Kuvittajat, and Värtsilä Artist Residency. The continuation of the programme is possible due to the support of the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and Nordic Culture Point. The resideny is funded by The Finnish Illustration Association – Kuvittajat and Ukraine Solidarity Residencies Programme.