What to Do in Kyiv This Weekend, June 12–14: Concerts, Markets, Art Talks, Festivals, and Exhibitions

An independent music and street culture festival, a conference featuring speakers from NASA, OpenAI, and SpaceX, major open-air concerts, and new exhibition projects — the upcoming weekend in Kyiv will be packed with events. Here are the highlights worth leaving home for on June 12–14.

Maryan Karpinskyi Experience Concert

The Kyiv-based project Maryan Karpinskyi Experience will perform at Squat 17b. The band operates at the intersection of jazz and fusion. Its founder, composer, and guitarist Marian Karpinskyi describes the group’s sound as “Drohobych fusion” — music where meditative qualities and gradual development combine with inner tension and vibrant energy.

On this evening, the musicians will perform as a trio. The program includes original compositions united by the theme of physical phenomena, as well as two free improvisations reflecting on current events.

Admission: Free, with an opportunity to donate to a fundraiser for the 1st Mechanized Battalion of the 22nd Separate Mykolaiv Mechanized Brigade

Exhibition “Hryhorii Havrylenko. New Life”

The Khanenko Museum is hosting “Hryhorii Havrylenko. New Life,” the first major attempt in nearly twenty years to present and reinterpret the work of one of Ukraine’s key Sixtiers artists.

The title references Havrylenko’s series of illustrations for Dante’s Vita Nova in Ukrainian translation. At the same time, it can be understood as a description of the artist’s own practice — with its search for the “purity of humanity and the world” — and as a sign of renewed scholarly and public interest in his legacy.

Hryhorii Havrylenko worked in painting, graphic art, book illustration, and sketching, consistently developing his own visual language. At the center of his work are female figures, nature, Kyiv landscapes, color, and light. Despite his importance to Kyiv’s cultural scene in the second half of the twentieth century, his work remains insufficiently represented and interpreted within Ukrainian culture.

Admission: Check with the museum

Ziferblat Concert

Ziferblat returns to Kyiv with a major solo concert at Origin Stage. Ukraine’s representatives at Eurovision 2025 will perform a program spanning different stages of their career.

The concert will feature songs from their debut album “Transformation,” tracks from the English-language record “Of Us,” compositions from the album “Melancholia,” as well as new material to be premiered live.

Admission: 890–2190 UAH

MÉLOVIN Concert

MÉLOVIN will perform a major open-air concert at Feels Garden. The artist is preparing a conceptual show where lighting, sound, and stage atmosphere function as a single immersive space.

After postponing the performance by a month, the singer will finally take the stage at VDNH with a program built around his best-known songs and new material.

Admission: 800–1700 UAH

YAKTAK Concert

YAKTAK will perform a solo concert at Kureni Concertni. One of the most prominent artists of the new generation will play his biggest hits, including “Endorphin,” “Sky,” “At Night,” and “The Look.”

In addition to the concert, guests will have access to food courts, bars, and relaxation areas overlooking the Dnipro River.

Admission: 1500–8000 UAH

“Summer Collections” Market

“Vsi. Svoi” will host the “Summer Collections” market, where more than 130 Ukrainian brands will present seasonal clothing, footwear, and accessories.

Visitors will find linen dresses, sundresses, muslin shirts, cotton T-shirts, summer shoes, bags, and jewelry — everything needed for the warm season from Ukrainian manufacturers.

Admission: Free

“Dirty Dog” Festival

The Dovzhenko Film Studio grounds will host the “Dirty Dog” festival, one of the main events of Ukraine’s independent music scene. The festival combines electronic music, alternative music, hip-hop, fusion, and heavy sounds.

This year, 49 artists will perform across three stages, including TYSK, “DK Enerhetyk,” Alex Savage, Maryana Klochko, Vera Logdanidi, Xarakter, “Nevtoma,” and “Skalo.” For the first time, international participants will join the festival, including British band Knives, Italy’s CrashBoomBang, and German DJ Mell G. In addition to the music program, an extreme sports park with rider competitions will be set up on-site.

Admission: 2150–2600 UAH

INSCIENCE Conference

INSCIENCE Conference will bring together more than a thousand participants and international speakers in Kyiv from the fields of science, technology, and innovation. Among the announced guests are representatives of SpaceX, OpenAI, and NASA.

The program includes discussions on space exploration, artificial intelligence, science fiction, the technological future, and startups, as well as an exhibition of innovative projects and workshops. Featured speakers include astrophysicist Paul Sutter, SpaceX engineer Veronika Nikitina, OpenAI Forward Deployed Engineering Team Lead Viktoriia Oliinyk, filmmaker Pavlo Ostrikov, and writer Illarion Pavliuk.

Admission: 600–7000 UAH

Kyiv Tattoo Fest

Kyiv Tattoo Fest returns to Platforma Art Factory with a two-day program dedicated to contemporary tattoo culture. The festival will gather more than 250 artists from Ukraine and across Europe, who will tattoo live in front of visitors.

The program includes tattoo competitions in various styles, a marketplace, a music stage, performances, food courts, and themed art zones. Visitors will also be able to get tattooed directly at the festival.

Admission: From 400 UAH

Exhibition “Chavvah — Means ‘Alive’”

The exhibition halls of the Khlibnia building at the Saint Sophia of Kyiv National Reserve are hosting artist Anastasiia Tykha’s project “Chavvah — Means ‘Alive.’” The exhibition explores female experience, corporeality, and intergenerational connections through painting and symbolic images of earth and flowers.

The artist addresses themes of female inheritance and the rethinking of social roles, presenting the body as a space of memory, life, and creation.

Admission: Included with reserve admission ticket

Art Talk “Art and Fashion”

The READEAT bookstore will host a lecture by art historian and writer Hanna Vladymyrska on the relationship between art and fashion.

The discussion will focus on how artists have influenced designers, why fashion continues to draw from art history, and how works of art become sources of inspiration for contemporary clothing design.

Admission: 400 UAH

Exhibition “Geometry of Light”

The Kyiv Art Gallery continues to host “Geometry of Light,” an exhibition that combines contemporary painting with Neo-Byzantine icons created using the plavy technique.

The project explores light, form, and space as ways of understanding spiritual experience. Geometric imagery becomes a tool for discussing harmony, order, and the search for inner guidance.

Admission: 100–200 UAH

BARTKY Concert

The Kyiv-based band BARTKY, which gained attention after performing at the Faine Misto festival, will play a concert at Atlas. The musicians promise to premiere several tracks from their upcoming debut EP and perform songs already familiar to their audience.

Admission: 590–1400 UAH

Exhibition “Kyiv Guidebooks and Maps”

The “Estate on Kudriavka” Museum is hosting an exhibition dedicated to historic guidebooks and maps of Kyiv from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The exhibition features tourist city plans, publications about Kyiv’s sacred sites, routes, and directories that helped residents and visitors navigate the city more than a century ago.

Admission: Check with the organizers

Exhibition “Women of the Avant-Garde”

The Museum of the Avant-Garde has opened “Women of the Avant-Garde,” an exhibition dedicated to the contribution of women artists to the development of the Ukrainian avant-garde movement.

The exhibition features works by Oleksandra Ekster, Sonia Delaunay, Khana Orlova, Hanna Starytska, Olha Rapai, Liudmyla Yastreb, and other artists. Visitors will see Oleksandra Ekster’s painting “City” on display for the first time, as well as a recent addition to the museum’s collection — Sonia Delaunay’s lithograph “Syncopated Rhythm.”

Admission: Check with the museum