The Winners of MUHi 2026 Have Been Announced!

On October 4, 2026, the award ceremony for the finalists of the MUHi 2026 competition for young Ukrainian artists took place. Daria Molokoiedova was named the winner of the competition, while Dmytro Kupriyan and Elza Gubanova received special prizes.

The winner will receive UAH 70,000, curatorial support, a certificate, and a statuette created by Pavla Nikitina, winner of the MUHi 2021 award. The special prize recipients will each receive UAH 30,000 and curatorial support.

Daria Molokoiedova is a multimedia artist born in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region. Since 2023, she has lived and worked in Kyiv. As part of the MUHi 2026 exhibition, the artist presented the installation My Life Is Ruins. The central element of the work is a series of pseudo-stained-glass pieces made from broken glass and featuring rose motifs. The first version of the project was realised as a site-specific installation: in March 2026, the artist integrated her floral stained-glass works into an abandoned greenhouse located on the grounds of a former municipal flower-growing facility in Zalizna Voda Park in Lviv.

Dmytro Kupriyan (Kyiv / Sumy) is an artist and serviceman. His practice explores themes of violence, brutality, and war. At the MUHi 2026 exhibition, he presented his project Riadno. The work is made from textiles sewn together from pieces of cloth used by Dmytro’s fellow soldiers to clean their weapons and serves as a metaphor for the brotherhood formed among servicemen.

Elza Gubanova is an artist and curator from Odesa. She lives and works in Leipzig, where she also studies in the Expanded Cinema class at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. The video installation The Earth Vibrates from Shock Waves, and the Waves Strike Their Bodies, presented at the MUHi 2026 exhibition, emerged from footage recorded during the production of the short film Black Waters, in which the artist approaches the Black Sea environment as both a damaged ecosystem and a space of the unconscious.

The works of the MUHi 2026 finalists can be seen at the exhibition at Promprylad Art Center in Ivano-Frankivsk until December 2, 2026. The exhibition is curated by Kseniia Malykh, Program Director of Promprylad Art Center.

The exhibition features works by the following artists:

• Critical Tech Group (Kyiv)
• Elza Gubanova (Odesa / Leipzig)
• Yevseviia Ziakina (Kharkiv)
• Sofiia Kozlova (Kamianske / Lviv)
• Dmytro Kupriyan (Kyiv / Sumy)
• Alisa Kulesh (Kyiv / Düsseldorf)
• Iryna Loskot (Kharkiv / Kyiv)
• Daryna Mamaisur (Kyiv / Brussels)
• Daria Molokoiedova (Kramatorsk / Kyiv)
• Dasha Podoltseva (Kyiv) and Oleksii Shmurak (Kyiv)

“The exhibition of the MUHi finalists is an exploration of the time we are collectively living through, expanded through their individual experiences: nonlinear, pieced together from memories, uncertain, fleeting. Some works draw viewers deep inside, while others offer a safe distance. These different degrees of proximity are also reflected in the media used: from photography and moving image to material objects, sculpture, and emerging technologies,” says Kseniia Malykh.

The international expert committee of the MUHi 2026 competition included:

Lorenzo Balbi (Italy) — Director of MAMbo – Museum of Modern Art of Bologna, Head of the Modern and Contemporary Art Department of the Bologna Civic Museums, and President of AMACI.

Maryna Hutz (Ukraine) — founder of the MUHi competition and curator of contemporary art exhibitions;

Rae Jones (United Kingdom) — artist and researcher whose work has been presented through projects at the Royal College of Art, London Design Festival, and Barbican Centre; co-founder of the Tool/Toy Project and a member of the steering committee of OUTPOST Norwich;

Paul Haywood (United Kingdom) — Professor at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London; Co-Chair of the National Association for Fine Art Education; academic and practitioner with extensive international experience in art education and interdisciplinary collaboration;

Isa Ho (Taiwan) — artist working with staged photography and digital synthesis;

Kseniia Malykh (Ukraine) — curator and art historian, Program Director of Promprylad Art Center;

Maria Proshkovska (Ukraine) — artist and MUHi 2017 award winner.

“Since 2009, when I founded MUHi, the art system has changed significantly. Today, artists have far more tools for self-presentation and visibility, but these do not always translate into professional development, critical dialogue, or inclusion in a broader context. For MUHi 2026, it is therefore important not simply to bring back the competition as a format, but to once again create a space in which young artists can be seen, heard, and critically engaged with by the professional community. At the same time, MUHi is entering a new stage in its history by becoming part of one of the programmes of Hutz Foundation. This makes it possible to view the competition not only as a standalone event, but also as part of a more consistent system of support, education, and development for contemporary Ukrainian art,” says Maryna Hutz, founder of the MUHi competition.

Applications for the MUHi competition for young artists were accepted from June 1 to June 21. The organisers received 402 applications, from which 10 finalists were selected.

Founder of the competition — Maryna Hutz;

Institutional Partner — Promprylad Art Center;

Media Partners — Artslooker, LB.ua;

Exhibition Curator — Kseniia Malykh;

Project Coordinator — Sviatoslav Mykhailov;

Communications Manager — Tereza Lashchuk;

Project Designer — Olha Kuzovkina.

MUHi is a multifunctional project aimed at providing consistent, long-term support for Ukrainian artists at an early stage of their professional development. The name MUHi is an abbreviation derived from the Ukrainian phrase meaning “young Ukrainian artists and…”. The first MUHi exhibition was presented in 2009 at Bottega Gallery.

Background information:

Hutz Foundation is an international cultural foundation established by Maryna Hutz in 2026 with the aim of supporting and developing contemporary art, fostering a professional artistic environment, and expanding dialogue between Ukrainian and international cultural communities. The Foundation’s main areas of activity include exhibitions, curatorial projects and events, international residencies, a school and educational programmes, as well as research and publishing initiatives. Hutz Foundation places particular emphasis on supporting artists in the creation of new works, the development of their practices, and their international presentation.

Promprylad Art Center is a cultural institution in Ivano-Frankivsk. The Art Center organises contemporary art exhibitions, educational programmes — including a contemporary art course for teenagers and the School of Cultural Competencies — as well as public programmes. Its first educational events were launched in spring 2025.