A wooden sculpture festival is held in Vinnytsia

The fifth International Wooden Sculpture Festival, "Ladizhynskyi Hai-2023," is currently taking place in Ladizhyn, Vinnytsia Region. This year, the event features the participation of five participants: two craftsmen from Kamianets-Podilskyi, and one each from Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne, and Lithuania. The artists have set up their workshops in the local park under the open sky. They allocated logs made of oak through a lottery to work with. The festival began on August 14th and is expected to conclude by the end of the week, as reported by Suspilne.

Inna Berezina, the festival's art curator, mentioned, "We only use wood that can be cut down. Everything is done legally, but we have a beautiful tradition. Symbolically, instead of each cut-down tree, during the opening ceremony, we plant another one."

Participants in the festival work with saws. Among them is Sergey Klyapetura from Kamianets-Podilskyi. He is working on a sculpture of Saint Florian and shared that he spends about 8 hours a day on his work.

He explained, "My sculpture is of Saint Florian. It is dedicated to our firefighters who saved us during all the rocket attacks. Saint Florian is a historical figure. According to legend, he extinguished a large fire with a single jug of water."

Sergey Steblyuk from Rivne is working on a sculpture similar to Michelangelo's fresco "The Creation of Adam."

He dedicates his work to energy workers and explained, "It's challenging to work on the theme. Most likely, finding the idea is one of the most difficult stages. But this is a creative process that brings satisfaction. We combine it with current events because we immortalize them in art."

Marius Piatrauskas from Lithuania expressed his belief in Ukraine's victory and chose an appropriate sculpture. He said, "I work with stone, metal, and iron. Sculpting is the easiest because you can always step back without any problems. In sculpture, there's a moment: you can fix something, but not infinitely. Mine will be Nike – the goddess of victory."

Bogdan Gladkiy, a resident of Ivano-Frankivsk, is carving a statue of a woman with a falcon. He explained his choice, saying, "In America, there is the Statue of Liberty, and I wanted to make a statue of freedom. Not freedom but liberty. I chose the image of a woman. Plus, the wood suggested this approach. Well, I'm trying to implement it."

Like in previous years, this year's wooden sculptures will be installed in various locations within Ladizhyn Park.