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Project overview
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Project overview
  • MKOV: Making a decade of art searchable

    MKOV: Making a decade of art searchable

Maria Kulikovskas decade of artistic practice was scattered across an outdated website and disconnected files. With no structured archive, every request from a curator, gallery, or journalist required manually searching for works and reconstructing their context. 

Maria Kulikovskas decade of artistic practice was scattered across an outdated website and disconnected files. With no structured archive, every request from a curator, gallery, or journalist required manually searching for works and reconstructing their context. 

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Process, approach, and outcomes
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Process, approach, and outcomes

Maria Kulikovska is a Kyiv‑based multimedia artist and architect working across performance, sculpture, and spatial installation. Her solo practice spans 2010 onward; since 2017, she has worked with Oleh Vinnichenko under the joint authorship MKOV.

The old WordPress site surfaced fewer than 20 works from a practice that had been growing for almost a decade. The rest lived across disconnected sources, and every gallery, curator, or press request triggered another manual search.

This was not simply a website redesign. There was no structured archive to migrate. I created the system behind the website: a taxonomy, content model, cross‑linked information architecture, and reusable publishing workflow. I led the original visual design in 2018–2020; the current website’s later visual redesign is not my work.

Timeline

2018–2020

Company

Maria Kulikovska and Oleh Vinnichenko

Role

UX designer and researcher

Team

Artist and archive owner: Maria Kulikovska

Collaboration: Oleh Vinnichenko

Research, information architecture, content model, UX, and original visual design: Karyna Aviutska

Process, approach, and outcomes

01

From scattered material to one taxonomy

I worked with Maria to excavate and index the practice across cloud folders, old computers, removable drives, publication sites, and scanned catalogues. A shared naming system and spreadsheet became the first working taxonomy for the archive.

02

From assembling files to sharing one URL

Workflow mapping revealed the real problem. Every request required Maria to search several sources and rebuild a custom package. The new system made search and a complete work page the primary response: find the work once, then share one URL.

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A connected archive Maria could maintain alone

I modelled artworks, series, events, publications, and architecture as related content types. Reusable page structures kept publishing consistent despite the CMS constraints. Maria added a new project independently on her first try.

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Details
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The system worked when its owner no longer needed its designer

Maria added a new project independently on her first try. The archive could keep growing without a designer rebuilding the page or the content structure each time.

The lasting outcome was not a specific visual treatment. It was a connected model of the practice that made the website useful to both sides: people researching the work and the artist maintaining it.

A publishing system, not a one‑off website

Every work page followed the same metadata structure: title, description, medium, dimensions, year, series, exhibition history, and publication mentions. Search stayed globally accessible because it was the primary studio workflow, not an extra feature.

The website’s visual design was updated by other designers after I finished the project. The archive structure, content model, and information architecture from my work remain the foundation.

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Final section
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