Artist talks, workshops, concerts, and community gatherings

UIMA presents Schubert Octet, a benefit concert for City of Goodness Children's Hospice - Misto Dobra, featuring members of the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra with a performance by Choir Glorious.

On October 11, we will gather in the presence of great music, but also in the presence of a greater purpose.

This special performance of Schubert's Octet by members of the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra, together with the voices of Choir Glorious, is more than an evening of beautiful music – it is a concert with a purpose. Proceeds and donations, in partnership with the Ukrainian Women's Association of America (UWAA), will benefit the City of Goodness Children's Hospice in Ukraine, which provides care and comfort to seriously ill children, including children with cancer who have been orphaned or displaced by the war.

These children have already endured unimaginable loss. Supporting their medical care, safety, dignity, and sense of hope is especially important. Through music, we come together not only to listen, but to stand with some of Ukraine's most vulnerable children and remind them that they are not forgotten.

Learn about the House of Butterflies – Ukraine's only charitable children's hospice in the City of Goodness, caring for orphaned children – at facebook.com/reel/1773133200267625.

UIMA is pleased to welcome acclaimed author and journalist Howard Reich as guest speaker for Art, Memory, and the Immigrant Experience.

Drawing on his own family history and a career devoted to culture, memory, and identity, Reich will reflect on what we carry with us when we leave one home and begin again in another. His reflections will unfold alongside the work of Ukrainian American artist Jacques Hnizdovsky, whose own journey of displacement and migration shaped an artistic language rooted in memory, resilience, and belonging.

Together, Reich's words and Hnizdovsky's art invite us to consider how the immigrant experience lives on – in memory, in creativity, and in the enduring idea of home.

Autumn Impressions: Botanical Printing with Fall Leaves

In this workshop, we'll work with the colors and shapes of fall leaves to create botanical prints on fabric.

Over two and a half hours, you'll learn the basics of preparing fabric, how to select and arrange leaves and other plant materials, and how to use heat and pressure to transfer their colors and shapes onto the fabric. You'll also receive a printed guide with recipes and instructions so you can continue experimenting with botanical printing at home.

All materials are included. No previous experience is necessary.

Selinger Gonzo is a Chicago-based natural dyer, artist, and musician. She works with plants and natural materials to create color and pattern on textiles, clothing, and accessories. Much of her work begins with things that might otherwise be overlooked - leaves, dried flowers, bark, kitchen waste, and other plant matter...She is drawn to the alchemy of it - the way something seemingly dead and ordinary can hold so much color, and how a little heat, time, and patience can reveal it.

Refund policy: No refunds.

Linocut Workshop at UIMA, led by Alex Kostivat. Workshop participants will plan, carve, and print a small linoleum block. Registration is required to attend.

Join us at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art for a free workshop to learn how to transfer an image onto the block and explore techniques for creating line, shape, contrast, and texture. By the end of the session, participants will print their images by hand.

RSVP: Space is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Register Here. Reserve your spot now through Humanitix. If you register in advance and later find you can't attend, please cancel your registration through Humanitix to open a spot for another participant.

Opening Reception Saturday, September 19, 12-4 pm. Ukraine: Voices From the Gray Zone. Documentation Photography by Eric Bladholm. Curated by Adrienne Kochman and Elena Smolynets.

Compiled over nine extensive humanitarian aid trips to Ukraine between 2022 and 2026, Voices From the Gray Zone documents daily life under russian aggression in some of the regions most affected by occupation and war. Presented as a timeline of photographs and video, the exhibition traces the struggles, resilience, and increasingly dangerous conditions faced by Ukrainian civilians and communities on the ground.

Bladholm's work bears witness to the people of Ukraine, giving voice to those russia has sought to silence through violence and oppression. The exhibition offers Chicago audiences a rare, firsthand visual record from an artist who has repeatedly traveled into the country during wartime, building direct relationships with the communities he photographs.

Слава Україні! Glory to Ukraine!

Home Grown Gallery Talk, Sunday, September 6. Moderated by Christine Nafziger, writer, editor, and curator (Managing Editor at Sixty Inches from Center and Associate Editor at Create! Magazine) and Home Grown curator Lauren Iacoponi. Several exhibiting artists will participate in the exhibition discussion followed by a Q&A: Aimée Beaubien, Molly Blumberg, Kris Casey, Kg, Naomi Hamlin-Navis, Christine Forni, Rachel Meyers Hefferan, Juan Molina Hernández, Rebecca Griffith, Hillary Irene Johnson, Noelani Jones, Maven Kennedy, Tulika Ladsariya, Erin LaRocque, Jaclyn Mednicov, Allen Moore, Grace Papineau-Couture, Katelyn Patton, CV Peterson, Monika Plioplyte, SK Reed, Amy Shelton, Marzena Ziejka.

Home Grown at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is an immersive exhibition exploring the deep entanglement between human and plant life, featuring Midwest artists working with natural pigments, dyes, plant reliefs, hand-pulled paper, and organic materials that include botanics, mycelia, and artist-made bioplastics. Home Grown serves as a green space within an urban environment, with thought-provoking, nature-focused work integrated into a landscape of live plants.

Object Display Shelf-Making Class, hosted by Lesley Jackson at the Little Craft School. Day One of a Three-Day Workshop, Thursday, September 3, 5:30-8:30 pm (also September 10 & 17).

Over three Thursday evenings, participants will design, build, and paint a decorative wooden shelf inspired by the history of scroll-cut shelves – humble wall-mounted pieces that were part storage, part quiet display. Day 1: Design your shelf, get oriented with the bandsaw. Day 2: Cut and assemble. Day 3: Add hanging hardware, paint, and finish.

This cross-organizational partnership between the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art and Little Craft School was made possible through the Terra Foundation for American Art Community Engagement Grant awarded to UIMA. Free and open to beginners with no woodworking experience needed. Registration required.

Natural Dye Workshop with Katelyn Patton, Wednesday, September 2, 6-8:30 pm. Learn to Make Natural Dyes with Invasive Species. Create beautiful natural dyes from buckthorn while helping remove this invasive species from our urban landscape.

Chicago-based artist Katelyn Patton, currently featured in the Home Grown exhibition at UIMA, will teach participants how to dye fabric using natural materials. Each participant will dye a fabric using buckthorn bark, an invasive plant to this area. Recommended ages 10 and up.

Registration required. Space is limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Behind the Scene: Project Evergreen (film clips and panel discussion). Project Evergreen, a collaborative film by husband-and-wife team Christine Forni (artist) and James Forni (director).

The film tracks an artist's journey back to an area near her family's roots, a place where Evergreen Conservancy transforms a legacy of environmental extraction into filtering and healing the waterways. A conversation about sharing ecological stewardship and documenting the creative process.

Making postcards with Cyanotypes & Ink: Sunprints with Nature, with Tulika Ladsariya. Saturday, August 22, 3-4 pm. Explore the art of cyanotype, an early photographic process that uses sunlight to create luminous blue-and-white images.

Participants will make postcards, working with leaves, flowers, and other natural materials to create cyanotype prints, experimenting with composition, layering, and the transformation of natural forms through light. Participants will also use inks to draw, layer, and respond to their cyanotype prints, creating images that combine the structure of plants with their own marks and ideas.

No prior art experience is needed. All materials will be provided. Tulika Ladsariya is currently featured in the Home Grown exhibition at UIMA.

Visible Mending, Saturday, August 15, 3-5 pm. RSVP here. Learn how to darn, applique, reverse applique, and embroider to fix your clothes, including sewing buttons and fixing hems! Embroidery floss, buttons, fabrics, and all tools will be provided but bring any garments that need any repairs including rips, holes, frayed hems or seams, and stains! Workshop led by Emilka Wolniewicz.

Rug Weaving, Saturday, August 8, 3-5 pm. RSVP here. Learn how to give a new life to old clothes or fabric scraps by transforming them into yarn to create a mini rag rug. Learn woven basics such as how to set up a frame loom and 3 weave structures: plain or tabby, basket, and twill!

All tools will be provided. Some fabric scraps will be provided but participants are encouraged to bring their own, used textiles. Workshop led by Emilka Wolniewicz.

Visible Mending, Sunday, July 26, 3-5 pm. Learn how to darn, applique, reverse applique, and embroider to fix your clothes, including sewing buttons and fixing hems! Embroidery floss, buttons, fabrics, and all tools will be provided but bring any garments that need any repairs including rips, holes, frayed hems or seams, and stains! Free workshop, RSVP to reserve your spot.

EVENT POSTPONED – Date & Time TBA. Join us for a Glass Painting Master Class. Grab a seat, pick up a brush, and create your own painted glass piece of art, all while supporting a great cause.

This not-for-profit workshop is organized by UNWLA Branch 36 and led by artists Elena Pach and Elena Diadenko, with sweet treats provided by Magic Jug. Every dollar raised goes directly to helping Ukrainian soldiers with combat gauze and hospital hygiene kits.

$60 to register: text 773-719-7403, or Zelle/PayPal ukrainianbranch36@gmail.com.

Natural Dye & Earth Pigment Workshop with Maven Kennedy & SK Reed. RSVP: space is limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Join artists SK Reed and Maven Kennedy, currently featured in the Home Grown exhibition at UIMA, for an immersive, hands-on collaborative workshop. This unique session teaches participants how to forage, process, and create art using locally sourced natural materials. Kennedy will demonstrate processing regional plants (marigolds), food waste (onion skins), and plant charcoal (ash), along with found objects (bricks/nails) to create distinct variations in local pigments. Reed will showcase how to process raw earth pigments and transform them into working watercolor paints.

The workshop will end in an activity! Guests are invited to use these pigments to create watercolor reflections on their relationships with their own local ecosystems. The artists hope participants will consider the collectivity of their environments – when sourcing their own pigments from their local ecosystems, both Kennedy and Reed feel a greater connection and grounding to place.

If you register in advance and later find that you will be unable to attend, please cancel your registration through Humanitix to open up a spot for another participant.

In memory of Ukrainian poet Maksym Kryvtsov (1990 - 2024). International exhibition Between Voice and Silence, featuring works by Ira Bondarenko, Katya Lisova, and Matvii Vaisberg, culminates in a tribute to the fallen Ukrainian poet, volunteer, soldier, and Hero of Ukraine, Maksym Kryvtsov. FREE ADMISSION.

Program: Artist's remarks by Ira Bondarenko. Reflections on Maksym's life and legacy by his sister, Anastasia Khudaverdyan, our honored guest. Pre-recorded video messages from Ukrainian poets Svitlana Povalyaeva, Valeriy Puzik, and Yaryna Chornohuz. Readings of Maksym's poetry in Ukrainian and English, Фонд імені Максима Кривова. TATI accompanied by music.

A Special Guest Event: An Afternoon with Olia Hercules. The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is honored to welcome Olia Hercules, celebrated cookbook author, food writer, and passionate advocate for Ukrainian culinary heritage, for an intimate afternoon conversation and book presentation.

Hercules will speak about her new book, Strong Roots: A Ukrainian Family Story through War, Exile and Hope, a deeply personal work that traces her family's journey and the enduring power of food, memory, and identity across generations of hardship and resilience.

This is a rare opportunity to meet one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Ukrainian culture. Join us for a conversation that is as much about history and hope as it is about cooking. A Q&A will follow the discussion. Free and open to the public.

Olia Hercules is visiting the city of Chicago as an esteemed nominee for the James Beard Award Ceremony on Saturday, June 13, and the official nominees' ceremony on Sunday morning, June 14.

Strong Roots is the story of a century in Ukraine told through four generations of one extraordinary family. It takes us from years of Russification, to Olia's grandmother's deportation to snowy wastelands under Stalin, to her Aunt Zhenia's school protest, to her own parents' flight from Ukraine when their town was occupied in 2022.

‘An instant classic’ – Nigella Lawson. ‘Sweeping, intimate, defiant and brimming with love’ – Louise Kennedy. ‘It is the roots that keep the trees from falling during a storm. Olia Hercules tells us that the same is true for people and nations’ – Serhii Plokhy.

About the author: Olia Hercules was born in the south of Ukraine in 1984. She left her home town Kakhovka at the age of twelve, when she moved to Cyprus. After finishing school, she moved to the UK where she studied Italian language and International Relations at the University of Warwick.

Following the financial crisis of 2008, Olia decided to quit her job as a film business reporter to pursue her dream to cook for a living. She trained at the renowned Leiths School of Food and Wine and worked as a chef de partie in restaurants, including Ottolenghi, before landing a book deal for Mamushka, a cookbook celebrating her family recipes, which won the Fortnum and Mason Award for best debut cookbook 2016. Olia was named the Observer Rising Star of 2015. Her second cookbook, Kaukasis, is a culinary journey through Georgia, Azerbaijan and beyond.

Join us for the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art's 55th Anniversary Concert, Saturday, June 6 at 5 pm. $25 Entry.

Performances by Halyna Heryavenko, Julia Perekhozhuk, Nazari Mykhalienko, Vadim Dubovsky, Myroslav Mykhailenko. All proceeds will aid in supporting the institute.

Ladies Who Lit and The Art Idiot are excited to present a screening of the award-winning film Almost Famous (2000), directed by Cameron Crowe and starring Kate Hudson as Penny Lane, leader of the Band Aids, Stillwater's muse and manager, and a style icon both on and off the silver screen.

This screening is presented in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art on the occasion of their current exhibition, L.A. Woman, a memorial which surveys the extraordinary life and multifaceted career of model, actress, artist, curator, and documentary filmmaker Irene Antonovych.

L.A. Woman, A Memorial Exhibit. Closing Celebration featuring Cello Performance by William Jason Raynovich.

William Jason Raynovich, composer, cellist, and experimental sound artist, presents a curated musical program for the closing reception honoring Orysia Antonovych on May 3, 2026 at 1:00pm. Over the years, Raynovich came to know Orysia, whom many also knew as Irene, through her consistent and generous presence at performances at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art.

At its center are two works for solo acoustic cello: "28.VII.1750… in memoriam J.S.B." by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov and "Passacaglia Ucraina" by Roman Turovsky. In addition, Raynovich incorporates selections from an evolving performance practice developed over the past three years, including compositions by Alvin Lucier, Pamela Z, Eve Beglarian, Colin Kemper, and his own works. The featured piece on the program is Raynovich's "now for electric cello and electronics."

The program is presented as a continuous, unbroken set, allowing the boundaries between works to dissolve into a larger sonic environment. Audience members are invited to move freely throughout the space during the performance, engaging not only with the music but also with the surrounding exhibition.

Between Voice and Silence, in memory of Ukrainian poet Maksym Kryvtsov. The exhibition 'Between Voice and Silence' explores the role of empathy and humanity in times of crisis.

Through their works, Ukrainian and American artists Katya Lisova (textiles), Matvii Vaisberg (prints), and Ira Bondarenko (ceramics) reflect on the limits and power of human agency in the face of overwhelming force. The value of humanity lies in its capacity to transcend adversity by embracing compassion and keeping empathy and human connection alive in the most oppressive darkness.

The project examines this concept through the lens of works of Ukrainian artists and poets and emphasizes the role of ordinary people in building resilience and saving the state. The exhibition honors the poetry and life of Ukrainian fallen soldier Maksym Kryvtsov and, by drawing its title from one of his poems, "In that space between Voice and Silence," invites the audience to relate to this "in-between" moment where the power of the human heart reigns.

Opening Reception Friday, May 1, 6-9 pm.