Yelena Yemchuk: Malanka - (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Heartfelt documentation of a traditional Ukrainian ritual heralding the arrival of spring: a startlingly personal project from the photographer and film director known for her work with the Smashing Pumpkins

This is the sixth photobook by Ukrainian American visual artist Yelena Yemchuk (born 1970). Born in Kyiv but based in the United States, Yemchuk makes images that teeter on the threshold between her Eastern European heritage and her daily life in New York; between fiction and reality; between the grand beauty of 1960s cinema and the social and built environments of post-Soviet realms. Through Yemchuk's gaze, spaces blur to create dreamscapes and metamorphoses. As with all of her work, Malanka is a personal, feminine, surrealist and magical project. The eponymous tradition is a pre-Christian folklore ritual driving out winter and welcoming spring, an ancient custom reminiscent of Persephone's return in Greek mythology. It is celebrated on January 14, the old New Year in the Julian calendar, by ethnic Romanians in western Ukraine. In 2019 and 2020, Yemchuk traveled to Crasna (Krasnoilsk in Ukrainian) to document the night-long festival. The book includes a poetic essay by Romanian cultural journalist Ioana Pelehatăi.

Review Quotes

Yemchuk's practice is characterized by a strong expressive plurality. This freedom of not locking herself into fixed categories, of constantly changing form and time even within the same project, tells well how the female approach to photography stands out today for its originality and dynamism.--Beatrice Zamponi

The people in the photographs appear resolute and proud. No other words come to mind than dignity and hope.--Nora Zukker "Tages-Anzeiger"

Malanka is an extension of her interest in the past and the present co-existing in the same shared space. This spectral sense of the past haunting - or living in - the present permeates many of her pictures.--Emily Dinsdale "Dazed"

Yelena Yemchuk captures magic and spirit of the cultural tradition through a personal, feminine lens.--Lark Breen "Sixtysix"