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The exhibition Vulnerability as Manifesto presents the latest works by Kateryna Lysovenko, a Ukrainian artist who uses painting, drawing, and text to confront the experience of war, corporeality, and memory. The starting point for the exhibition is the question of whether art made in a time of violence must speak only of heroism, survival, and death. Lysovenko shifts attention toward fragility, birth, pleasure, and the desire to trust the world again. In her paintings, the body is not a closed form, but something open to transformation: it merges with the sea, trees, figures from folk tales, and visions of future life. Vulnerability becomes not a weakness, but a manifesto — a form of resistance against historical trauma and an attempt to reclaim language for what is fragile, sensual, and alive.

The exhibition architecture builds a space of quiet and protection around Kateryna Lysovenko’s works. The gallery is located in the very center of the city, with a direct view of the Palace of Culture and Science, yet the main gesture of the project is the temporary concealment of this image. A large, semi-transparent screen placed in front of the window separates the main room from the urban landscape and creates a soft, intimate interior for paintings that speak of fragility, corporeality, and the need for shelter. Behind the screen, a narrow space is created to house the gallery’s temporary office — only there, outside the exhibition space, does the view of the city center open up again. A separate gesture is the entrance to the exhibition, formed as a narrow airlock leading the viewer into the main room. Lightweight structures made of wood and white planes organize the space as a sequence of passages, screens, and partial views, encouraging slow circulation between the paintings.