- October 1, 2026
- 11:58 am
- World News
On October 16 and 17, 2026, the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Tel Aviv will host an exhibition by Ukrainian artist and restorer Yana Dereza, “Threads of Identity”. At the center of the project is the motanka, one of the recognizable forms of Ukrainian folk culture, which the artist transforms into a modern story about memory, past experiences, and the attempt to preserve oneself after major changes. Admission to the exhibition is free. Dereza will also conduct three practical workshops.
The exhibition will be held in cooperation with Israeli Friends of Ukraine.
Author: Anton Pshedinsky
The title here is quite accurate — “Threads of Identity”.
A person is indeed composed of many such “threads”: family, the city where they grew up, language, things from the parental home, people they remember. Then moves, new countries, losses, sometimes war are added to this. Something breaks, something has to be tied anew.
This is exactly what Yana Dereza talks about through the Ukrainian motanka.
The exhibition will take place on October 16–17, 2026 at the Ukrainian Cultural Center on Yirmeyahu Street, 22 in Tel Aviv. According to the organizers’ announcement, this is a project about memory and healing, rethinking the past, searching for oneself, and restoring inner integrity.
But behind these rather big words are small things — fabric, thread, embroidery, knot. Things that can be held in hands.
Motanka: from a rural doll to a Ukrainian symbol
For an Israeli reader, the word “motanka” almost certainly requires explanation. It is a traditional Ukrainian doll made of fabric, not sewn like a regular toy, but primarily twisted, wound, and tied. Hence the familiar name today — from the Ukrainian “motati”, meaning to wind. In villages, they spoke even more simply — “twist the doll”. It could be made from several scraps of fabric, threads, and whatever was at hand.
But here begins the more interesting part of the story. Today, the motanka is often presented as a single ancient Ukrainian talisman, existing almost unchanged since the times of Trypillya. Such a statement is too simplistic.
Ukrainian researchers do indeed trace a very old tradition of anthropomorphic figures in the territory of present-day Ukraine. In archaeological cultures here, female figurines associated with agriculture, fertility, home, birth, and rituals were found. Especially often in this context, the Trypillian culture of the 5th–3rd millennia BC is mentioned. The National Center of Folk Culture “Ivan Honchar Museum” also draws parallels between Trypillian anthropomorphic plastic and later folk dolls.
But archaeology does not give us a motanka that could be placed next to a modern one and say: here it is, the same doll five thousand years ago. There are huge gaps between separate eras. Even researchers of folk toys admit: there is not enough material to prove a direct continuous line from the Trypillian figurine to the textile Ukrainian doll of the 19th–20th centuries. It is more correct to speak of ancient images and traditions, with which the later folk doll has obvious parallels, rather than a literally unchanged object that survived several millennia.
The motanka, which can already be confidently described ethnographically, is especially characteristic of Central Dnieper region — Cherkasy, Poltava, and the southern part of Kyiv region. In villages, such dolls continued to be made even in the 20th century, in some places until the 1960s–1970s. Pieces of old work or festive clothing were used, the fabric was twisted, tied, forming the head and torso. No factory or craft kit was required, of course.
And the functions were different. This is fundamentally important.
The motanka could be a children’s toy. It could appear in a wedding or family context, associated with the wish for continuation of the family and motherhood. A doll that a grandmother made for her granddaughter from fabric belonging to the family could indeed acquire the significance of a family talisman. But the notion that any motanka automatically was a magical amulet with a strictly established set of “protective functions” is largely a later popular interpretation. The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine separately warns that many rules, prohibitions, and mystical properties have arisen around motankas on the internet, which ethnographic materials simply do not confirm.
There is another detail that immediately catches the eye: the face.
In traditional knot dolls, it could remain without human features at all. On some, a cross made of threads appeared. Today, the cross on the face has become almost the main visual sign of the “Ukrainian motanka”, although historically there were different options, and it is not worth making it a universal rule. Researchers note that in modern author motankas, this element sometimes remains almost the only direct reminder of the old canon.
For an Israeli reader, a clear parallel can be drawn here, but cautiously. It is somewhat like an object of family and religious tradition, which over time goes beyond just domestic use and also becomes a sign of cultural belonging. It can already stand in a museum, appear in modern art, become part of the conversation about identity — and at the same time continue to exist at home, in the family.
This is exactly what happened with the motanka in Ukraine, especially noticeably already in the 21st century. Until the early 2000s, the making of such dolls was not a widespread phenomenon throughout the country. Then the tradition began to be actively revived by masters, museums, and folk art schools. The motanka went far beyond the regions where it historically existed and gradually became one of the recognizable visual symbols of Ukrainian culture.
This, by the way, helps to better understand Yana Dereza.
She takes an already dual object: an old folk form and at the same time a modern Ukrainian symbol. But instead of reproducing the “correct motanka by sample”, she disassembles it into parts again. Fabric, embroidery, threads, wood, herbs, metal, personal items, and symbols begin to tell not about an abstract tradition, but about a specific person.
And an interesting circle emerges.
Once such a doll could be made at home from pieces of clothing of one’s own family. Today, Dereza returns personal memory to it again — only now through the means of modern art. Therefore, the title of the Tel Aviv exhibition “Threads of Identity” is not just a decorative metaphor here. The thread indeed connects several layers at once: the old Ukrainian tradition, family, memory, forced relocation, and the present-day person trying to understand what remains their own from all this.
Who is Yana Dereza
Yana Dereza was born in Kyiv in 1996. She is a professional artist-restorer, studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. Dereza herself says that handcraft was present in her family for several generations: her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother sewed and did needlework. She drew, embroidered, and worked with beads from childhood.
She seriously encountered the motanka in 2014, still during her studies. In an ethnography class, she saw such a doll brought by an acquaintance, and in the evening made her own — red, the color of poppy, with sage inside. Then experiments with materials and form began.
And this is important for understanding the exhibition: Dereza came to the motanka not from the side of souvenir production.
Her professional base is painting and restoration. Before the full-scale Russian invasion, she was engaged in painting and worked with the techniques of old masters. After February 2022, she found herself in Prague, while her studio and materials remained in Kyiv. According to her story, it was the motankas that helped her return to work: she bought the necessary materials already in the Czech Republic and essentially started part of her creative life anew.
Today she works not only with art dolls but also with painting and embroidery. In the international project ART-EMBASSY, Yana Dereza is listed as a creative manager; the platform itself is engaged in exhibitions and cultural projects in different countries.
Why this story is understandable in Israel
There is no need to artificially make the Ukrainian and Israeli experiences the same. They are not the same.
But the situation itself, when a person lives simultaneously within several layers of memory, is well known to Israelis. In one house, things from Kyiv, Odessa, Morocco, Iraq, Poland, or Argentina can be kept; parents speak one language, children already another, and some old embroidered napkin or photograph suddenly turns out to be stronger than the official biography.
And at this level, Dereza’s motankas are already understood without an ethnographic dictionary.
The exhibition in Tel Aviv speaks not only about preserving the Ukrainian tradition. It shows what happens to tradition after relocation: whether it remains a museum object or begins to live in a new city and tells a new story.
For the venue itself, such an exhibition is also quite organic. The Ukrainian Cultural Center on Yirmeyahu, 22 operates in Tel Aviv as a permanent space for exhibitions, meetings, lectures, and other Ukrainian cultural events. NAnews has already detailed the center and its work in Israel.
NAnews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency continues to follow Ukrainian cultural events in Israel for this very reason: the connection between the countries exists not only at the level of diplomacy or big politics. Sometimes it looks just like a few meters of fabric, a ball of thread, and a person explaining to another person why all this was preserved.
More about the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Tel Aviv:
https://news.nikk.co.il/ukrainskij-kulturnyj-centr/
You can make a motanka with your own hands
The program does not end with the exhibition.
Yana Dereza will conduct three practical workshops, during which participants will be able to make their own motanka. The organizers specify separately: no prior experience is needed, necessary materials will be provided on site.
October 16
10:00–12:00 — workshop in Ukrainian.
13:30–15:30 — workshop in Ukrainian.
October 17
10:00–12:00 — workshop in English.
There is a significant difference here: the exhibition itself is free, but participation in the workshops requires prior ticket purchase. The number of places is limited.
Registration for the workshop AVAILABLE VIA LINK.
When to come
The exhibition “Threads of Identity” will be open:
October 16, 2026 — from 10:00 to 16:00.
October 17, 2026 — from 10:00 to 12:00.
Where: Ukrainian Cultural Center, Yirmeyahu St, 22, Tel Aviv–Yafo.
Admission to the exhibition is free.
The exhibition will be held in cooperation with Israeli Friends of Ukraine.
And if the word “motanka” meant nothing to you before — this is perhaps not an obstacle. Rather the opposite. You can come without knowledge of Ukrainian ethnography and see how an item, which for many years was placed somewhere between folk craft and family talisman, becomes a story about quite modern life with a contemporary artist: where you are from, what you brought with you, and what of your former self you managed not to lose.