CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/6/2024

Ancient custom, from darkness to light, in 'Yelena Yemchuk: Malanka'

Featured spreads are from Ukranian American visual artist Yelena Yemchuk's most recent photobook, Malanka, documenting "Old New Year," a heavily incantatory, night-long, pre-christian, folklore ritual that takes place on January 14 every year. It is celebrated by ethnic Romanians in western Ukraine. For this project, Yemchuk traveled to Crasna (aka Krasnoilsk) in 2019 and 2020, photographing the celebration meant to drive out winter and stimulate spring into existence—an ancient custom reminiscent of Persephone’s return in Greek mythology. ⁠
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—in this case including a poetic essay by Romanian cultural journalist Ioana Pelehatăi, who traveled to Ukraine in 2023, as war raged to the east. She writes, “The locals shudder at the term ‘carnival,’ but we’ll circle back to that later. For now, I just want to point out that the origins of the term come from carne levare, or ‘remove flesh.’ Shrove Tuesday. Mardi Gras. The right time and place to renounce the old and bring in the new, to flip hierarchy on its head, to laugh in the face of hegemony. Malanka. Carnival. Maybe. … The Malanka chases out evil spirits and brings in the wealth of the new year. Here, in the old world’s east, death isn’t a boogeyman; it’s an acquaintance. It shows up, and you give it a place at the big table because you can’t make it leave. You respect death, but you don’t love it. Death is a strict mother, or a grandma who raised you.”