Returning dwelling, photographer Yelena Yemchuk finds magnificence in a rustic at struggle

There was little question for photographer Yelena Yemchuk that upon returning to Ukraine, she would encounter the ache and loss that comes with the day-to-day actuality of Russia’s full-scale struggle — however she wasn’t fairly prepared for the way a lot love there was to go round, too.

“It’s this understanding of what life is, the understanding of what love is, the understanding of human relationships, and this appreciation for the moment,” Yemchuk advised the Kyiv Independent.

“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced. I think that’s what happens when you’re living in a reality where you could die at any moment.”

Yemchuk’s first exhibition in her native Ukraine, “Mnemosyne,” opened on Nov. 4 on the Naked Room Gallery in downtown Kyiv and can run till Nov. 30.

A go to to Ukraine in August 2024, her first because the begin of the full-scale struggle, set in movement “Mnemosyne” — the second act of a cross-cultural exhibition connecting Kyiv and Marseille.

Organized by The Naked Room and Kolektiv Cité Radieuse with the Institut Français in Ukraine, it builds on the primary a part of the venture, “Ithaca,” which opened in France earlier this 12 months.

Yemchuk initially hadn’t come to Ukraine with a selected venture in thoughts. She had come, she says, “to see my family, to see my friends, and simply be back in Ukraine.” After the Naked Room invited her to organize an exhibition, her go to took on a brand new route.

“At first, I didn’t think I had anything to say, I just wanted to be here. There was just this incredibly strong female energy that I was drawn in by. I always felt like Ukraine was a woman,” Yemchuk mentioned.

“I just kept falling in love with every tree, with the wind, with the flowers, and the girls. The girls are so beautiful and so multilayered here. So, I said, you know what? Actually, I do want to take some pictures.”

For the venture, Yemchuk additionally started digitizing negatives from the Nineties and early 2000s, together with photographs taken from her first journeys again to Ukraine. This led her to develop the venture’s scope, including beforehand unseen pictures and new collages comprised of her archival images.

“I always felt like Ukraine was a woman.”

Yelena Yemchuk on the Naked Room in Kyiv, Ukraine on Oct. 31, 2025 (Elena Kalinichenko/The Kyiv Independent)

Born in Kyiv in 1970, Yemchuk moved to the US together with her household as a youngster, but Ukraine and its affect have remained central to her life and work. Her artwork has been broadly celebrated for its deep exploration of reminiscence and identification.

Few artists transfer between disciplines as fluidly as Yemchuk. She’s constructed a protracted and completed profession through the years that spans tremendous artwork and popular culture, from evocative tasks like her photobooks “Odesa” and “Gidropark” to directing music movies for the Smashing Pumpkins.

The surreal, dream-like environment in a lot of Yemchuk’s photographs comes from her use of sunshine and shade. Instead of counting on the precision of studio lighting, she prefers the shifting, pure gentle of the outside — the place shade feels alive as an alternative of managed.

“Malanka,” Yemchuk’s photobook, which paperwork the well-known New Year’s folks celebration in Ukraine’s southwestern Chernivtsi Oblast, is without doubt one of the greatest examples of this. The snow-blanketed village gives a muted, wintry backdrop that contrasts superbly with the revelers’ vibrant, conventional costumes.

Yemchuk says she at all times pays shut consideration to how the topic, clothes, and surroundings work together, letting her instinct information her selections in order that gentle turns into each a medium and an emotion.

For Yemchuk, it isn’t her use of sunshine or shade that units her images aside, although. She prefers to talk of the relationships she types together with her topics, and the way constructing that quiet belief permits her to seize a picture that is each intimate and timeless.

“I like to push the boundaries and go beyond a traditional portrait to make it more about the subject and where they are,” Yemchuk defined.

“So I try to avoid a ‘time frame’ in my photos, so to speak. That’s important to me. I try to make my photos timeless, so when you’re not sure if it could have been taken in the 1970s, 1990s, or today.”

The course of of selecting who to {photograph} is “instinctual” slightly than a aware alternative for Yemchuk. Walking down the road, surrounded by a whole bunch of faces, she says she could really feel compelled to instantly cease that individual and ask them if she will take their image.

“I’m obsessed with faces, but also the energy that person has. Sometimes, you can just immediately pick up on a person’s energy.”

Note from the writer:

Kate Tsurkan right here, thanks for studying my newest piece. For images lovers, Yelena Yemchuk is the definition of a residing legend, and so it’s a terrific achievement to see artists like her exhibiting their work in Ukraine throughout the full-scale struggle.

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