Victoria Yakusha Brings The Garden of Light to AVA Coconut Grove for Miami Art Week

At a Glance

• AVA MediterrAegean Coconut Grove will host The Garden of Light, a new installation by Ukrainian designer, artist and architect Victoria Yakusha, during Miami Art Week.
• The installation features animal sculptures from her LAND OF LIGHT series and approximately five SONIAH floor lamps, placed through the restaurant's entrance and interiors.
• Both collections are hand-sculpted in ZTISTA, a sustainable material Yakusha developed, with a fingerprint-like surface that makes each piece unique.
• Yakusha founded FAINA, Victoria Yakusha Studio and Victoria Yakusha Gallery; her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.

This Miami Art Week, AVA MediterrAegean Coconut Grove will turn its Peacock Garden setting into a landscape of art, design and light with The Garden of Light, a new installation by Ukrainian designer, artist and architect Victoria Yakusha.

The installation explores the relationship between nature, light and what Yakusha calls the spirit of objects, and extends through the restaurant's entrance and interior spaces. It brings together two of her signature bodies of work, LAND OF LIGHT and SONIAH, so that guests encounter her sculptural creatures and hand-crafted lights as part of the AVA experience. The presentation will include a range of animal sculptures from LAND OF LIGHT alongside approximately five SONIAH floor lamps.

At the center of Yakusha's practice is Live Design, her philosophy that objects and spaces carry their own energy, spirit and sense of life. Rooted in her Ukrainian heritage, her work draws on nature, ancestral knowledge and traditional craftsmanship, reinterpreted through a contemporary, minimalist lens.

LAND OF LIGHT is a series of sculptural creatures conceived as bearers of light. For Yakusha, light is an inner force that can be held, protected and passed from one being to another. The Land of Light is not a place but a state, shaped by those who keep that force alive.

"I think of these pieces as living beings. Each has its own character and carries its own light. Bringing them together is my way of sharing that light," Yakusha said.

The SONIAH floor lamps take their name and silhouette from the sunflower, distilled into an elemental sculptural form. First presented in Venice in 2021, the collection has since entered private collections internationally. Each lamp is shaped entirely by hand, with an irregular, tactile surface that keeps the trace of its making, so no two pieces are alike.

Both collections are hand-sculpted in ZTISTA, a sustainable material Yakusha developed that has become part of her material language. Its fingerprint-like surface gives each work individuality and reinforces her belief in materials as living elements.

The collaboration pairs Yakusha's design philosophy with AVA's approach to hospitality. Set within Coconut Grove's historic Peacock Garden, AVA is inspired by the Mediterranean way of living, bringing together dining, music, nature and social connection in a setting made for gathering. With The Garden of Light, that philosophy extends beyond the table into an environment where art, design and hospitality become one experience.

Yakusha is the founder of FAINA, Victoria Yakusha Studio and Victoria Yakusha Gallery, with a practice spanning Ukraine, Belgium and the United States. Her work has been presented at Design Miami, Salon Art + Design, Milan Design Week and Collectible, and is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. She was named among Dezeen's 50 most powerful women in architecture and design in 2024, recognized by Robb Report in 2025 and featured by Wallpaper* among the women shaping design today in 2026.

AVA Coconut Grove is at 3015 Grand Avenue, Miami. The installation runs during Miami Art Week; visit avacoconutgrove.com for details.

For more information, visit avacoconutgrove.com.