Culture and Traditions of Ukraine

A Ukrainian Costume Exhibit

This exhibit featured the Ukrainian-American project 'Батьківська Хата. Homestead.' This educational project showcases the culture and traditions of Ukraine through a series of photographs representing every main region of Ukraine. It features modern-day Ukrainians dressed in authentic traditional clothes, photographed in old Ukrainian buildings and homes corresponding to each region. The project also highlights traditional crafts, jewelry, accessories, hairstyles, and the overall way of life in Ukraine from 100 years ago.

Our mission is to promote Ukrainian culture among Ukrainians worldwide, as well as in English-speaking countries. Our goal is to showcase the national costumes of various ethnographic regions of Ukraine from the late XIX to the early XX century, along with the architectural forms of each corresponding region.

The photographs were taken at the National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine. Thanks to the museum's cooperation, we were able to capture exclusive close-ups not available to the public. This allows viewers to truly appreciate the details of the furniture, crafts, clothing, shoes, body jewels, etc. The photographs are highly detailed, clearly demonstrating embroidery features of shirts from different regions, as well as the appearance of traditional Ukrainian houses and household items from that period. For each featured region, we carefully selected authentic costumes and thoroughly researched information about the houses in that region where the photo shoot took place.

Homestead was created for Ukrainians who can no longer visit their parents' home for various reasons. For example, Ukrainians who live abroad and do not have the opportunity to return home very often or those whose houses were destroyed by the war.

Homestead team: Olenka Bravo (San Antonio, TX), Natalka Sturgill (Gainesville, GA), Svitlana Zadorovska (Kyiv, Ukraine).

This exhibit is courtesy of Forsyth local Natalia Sturgill. Natalia born in Ukraine, moved to the US in 2005. Since 2014, her passion revolves around studying and collecting antique Ukrainian clothing from the late 19th to early 20th century. Her collection includes 1200+ artifacts, with over 400 antique embroidered shirts.

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