Showing Courage in Ukraine With Handfuls of Clay

This article is part of our Design special section about the reverence for handmade objects.

In late August 2020, eight humanoid statues appeared in a quiet corner of the Saint-Sophia of Kyiv conservation area, a 12-acre museum complex that is centered on the thousand-year-old Saint-Sophia Cathedral. Called “Shadows,” the clay-and-copper sculptures — each faceless and ghostly, with a torsolike form planted on a cylindrical base — had been made by Yuriy Myrko, a co-founder of GORN Ceramics in Kyiv for the annual Bouquet Kyiv Stage Festival.

“The people who keep the cathedral decided they liked the sculptures and proposed to keep them there.” said Bogdan Kryvosheya, 30, who founded GORN with Mr. Myrko, 41, and is the studio’s creative director. “The exhibition was only for a week or so, but the sculptures stayed there for almost three years.”

“Shadows” marked a turning point for GORN, which until then had mostly produced utilitarian items like vases and bowls. The figures reflected ideas about human relationships, death and spirituality. Since they appeared, GORN has continued to produce emotional art pieces alongside its more practical offerings. Intensified by the war with Russia and the unpredictability of the future, the studio’s output is a testament to creative freedom and resilience in the face of unimaginable hardship.

Mr. Kryvosheya and Mr. Myrko met in 2017, and with a third partner, Sasha Mychak, established GORN the following year to produce ceramic tableware that they and other artists designed.