Yelena Yemchuk: Malanka

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.