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VARUŠNIAK

@varushniak

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Not to forget who I am

Grateful for the chance to reconnect with my roots since leaving home 🌿

Kupalle Spirits / Купальскія духі

Concept & headdress @milakotka.art
Varušniak Festival @varushniak
PH @anna.wardejn

#verushkabonchinche #kupalle

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Still feeling the magic of this performance ✨

A beautiful experience of connecting with nature, femininity and ancient traditions 🌿

Kupalle Spirits / Купальскія духі

Special performance created by @milakotka.art for Varušniak Festival, Warsaw @varushniak

Video @anna.wardejn

#verushkabonchinche

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Kupalle Spirits | Dariia

I love responding to sincere curiosity from the other side of the “artist.” In my practices, the viewer is often the most important creator.

Dariia is a young woman from Ukraine who reached out to me herself, expressing her desire to take part in the Kupalle performance — and suggesting which spirit she felt most connected to. In The Forest Song, a poetic drama by Lesya Ukrainka (also adapted into a 1961 film by Viktor Ivchenko), Mavka, a mythical forest being and child of the forest, falls in love and tries to live together with a human in the world of people.

I made Dariia’s headdress from birch, a feminine tree believed to take away sorrow, river grass, and “snake grass,” another name for the yellow immortelle.

© MILA KOTKA
Kupalle Spirits, 2026
Купальскія духі

Photo/Video: Anna Wardejn

Model/Performer: Dariia

Music: Šuma

📍 Varušniak festival, Warsaw, Poland

👑 The dried headdress is preserved and available for acquisition as a bio-art object for interiors or shoots.

#milakotka
@anna.wardejn
@odarcca
@shuma_duo
@varushniak

🌿

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Kupalle Spirits | Verushka Bonchinche

The distinctive character of each ritual headdress was also shaped by the personalities of the performers — those who took on the mission of existing between dreams and reality during the Kupalle night at Varušniak this summer.

Verushka is a queen of Vogue, so her headdress emerged as something elegant yet slightly extravagant, evoking both balls and forests — a forest ball, which is essentially what Kupalle is as a celebration.

The veil is made from shepherd’s purse, the crown from wild herbs of the Danube River, brought from the Munich area and from Kupalle celebrations there. The lace-like element is made from Helichrysum arenarium — immortelle, a symbolic plant in Slavic culture associated with preserving beauty and attracting love. Its everlasting yellow flowers were sewn into the pillows of loved ones, so that their affection would last as long as possible.

© MILA KOTKA
Kupalle Spirits, 2026
Купальскія духі

Photo/Video: Anna Wardejn

Model/Performer: Verushka Bonchinche

Music: Šuma

📍 Varušniak festival, Warsaw, Poland

👑 The dried headdress is preserved and available for acquisition as a bio-art object for interiors or shoots.

#milakotka
@anna.wardejn
@verushkabonchinche
@shuma_duo
@varushniak

🔥

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bye-bye, summer'26 👋

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From summer. From @varushniak

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Kupalle Spirits | Milana

A closer look at one of the ritual headdresses created for Varušniak Kupalle this summer.

One of my goals was to create a possibility for each performer to touch the divine within themselves, to carry it into the day of the performance, to become its conduit.

Milana captivated me with her graceful, playful energy — sensual, magnetic, and full of life. I translated it into a headdress where wild garlic, growing freely in open sunny clearings, meets rye, carefully cultivated in human-made fields. The wild and the cultivated, braided together.

© MILA KOTKA
Kupalle Spirits, 2026
Купальскія духі

Photo/Video: Anna Wardejn

Music: Šuma

Model/Performer: Milana

📍 Varušniak festival, Warsaw, Poland

👑 The dried headdress is now preserved and available for acquisition as a bio-art object for interiors or shoots.

#milakotka @varushniak @anna.wardejn @shuma_duo

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Thank you for having me as part of your performance for Kupalle Night @milakotka.art 🌿 (вінок був важкий як крила victoriaʼs secret🪽)

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@varushniak

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#olympusmjuii

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Hey! Here’s is my schedule over the next few weeks. Can’t wait to spend beautiful moments together and share music with you mates!

7.08 | w/ @unjack_tu at @twist__bar Prague* 🇨🇿
15.08 | w/ @wooqee , @tommy_versetti @_dana_damn at @sektaselekta Krakow 🇵🇱
29.08 | @hex_komm x Lampa w/ @___________adelina___________ , @jd__elvira , @jess.mp5 at @jasnajeden Warsaw 🇵🇱
4.09-7.09 | w/ many friends at @wooboodoo__ Ostroda 🇵🇱
23.10 | Aūra curated by @jd__elvira w/ @hazyflora.music , @stereometrix , @stroppy_pie , @pasha.plaha at @pawilon_poznan Poznan 🇵🇱

* Fun fact: before it was Twist Bar, this venue was called Vlkova 26. That’s where I first discovered minimal music on the dancefloor, so this place and event feels very special to me 🙏🏼

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