The Kyiv-born artist Lesia Vasylchenko has won the 400,000 Ukrainian hryvnia (around $10,000) PinchukArtCentre Prize. Her winning installation features two video works: one of mystical and historical reflections on the shelling that has been rampant during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and another that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to turn 30 years of sunrises into one event.
At the awards ceremony held at the Pinchuk Art Centre in central Kyiv on Wednesday (18 June)—a day of mourning after a deadly Russian drone attack killed at least 28 people in the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday—Vasylchenko announced that she is donating the entire prize sum to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The prize, established by the Ukrainian businessman and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk, is awarded annually to a Ukrainian artist aged 35 or younger. Its recipient is also automatically entered into consideration for the Kyiv art centre’s $100,000 international Future Generation Prize, which after multiple delays due to the war was awarded in 2024 to Bangladeshi artist Ashfika Rahman. The PinchukArtCentre prize is typically awarded every two years, but a winner was last named in 2022.
Lesia Vasylchenko, Tachyoness, 2022 Courtesy of the artist
In Night Without Shadows (2022-25), Vasylenko works with video recordings taken of the night sky from 1918 to 2025, employing Jacques Derrida’s concept of “hauntology” as a basis for documenting the dark terror and fear of war. The eight-minute video Tachyoness (2022), based on sunrises from 1990 to 2022, considers AI’s impact on memory.
The painter Kateryna Aliinyk, who is originally from Luhansk, a region in eastern Ukraine illegally annexed by Russia, was given a special prize for her work. Yevhen Korshunov, an artist from the Kyiv suburb Brovary—which was brutally assaulted by Russia in the early days of the war in 2022—also received a special prize. They will each receive 100,000 Ukrainian hryvnia (around $2,400) and other financial support for their work, including internships, residences or new production.
Bjorn Geldhof, the artistic director of the centre—who in an essay in The Art Newspaper last month urged the international community to support Ukrainian artists—led the prize jury that included the Ukrainian contemporary artists Alevtina Kakhidze and Lesia Khomenko, the curator of the Polish Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale Marta Czyż, and Carina Bukuts, the curator at Portikus in Frankfurt am Main.
The PinchukArtCentre Prize ceremony on 18 June Photo by Oleksandr Piliugin, PinchukArtCentre / PinchukArtCentre Prize 2025
“The ceremony opened with a minute of silence to remember all those who passed away since the beginning of the war,” Geldhof tells The Art Newspaper. “Due to the horrific events on Tuesday the ceremony was serene and calm but still recognised the incredible power and artistic talent of a new generation of Ukrainian artists. We were also very humbled by the fact that the main prize winner committed to donating all the funds she received back to the army, which deeply moved the audience and all present."
On Monday, Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications reported that 208 artists have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022. Many have died on the front, including Marharyta Polovinko in April and Artur Snitkus, who was killed in combat near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine a year ago. The 18-year-old artist Veronika Kozhushko was killed last August in a Russian guided bomb attack on Kharkiv. Mykhailo Klymchenko, known for his mosaics and stained glass works in churches across Ukraine, was also killed in action this month.
