They go back in time – to the world of pre-war Odessa, sketches of the port city, photos of people – as a prediction of what is happening in Ukraine for almost a year now. Premonition of war – patina on all photos.
A book of photographs titled ODESA has been included in the Best Art Collections for 2022 according to US magazine Time. The author is Elena Yemchuk, a Ukrainian-American.
“All of these things have a completely different meaning now,” Elena Yemchuk points to one of her photographs. – Here you look like a punk, you are just a child, wearing clothes that say – “hell”. But now, in Ukraine, it’s real. True hell. Real”.
Elena Yemchuk is a cult fashion photographer, her focus is usually the fashionable and Hollywood beau monde, but since the start of a full-scale war, fashion has faded. The focus is on Ukraine. Elena is from Kiev. I was in Odessa several times when I was a child, at the age of 11 I immigrated to the United States with my parents. These photos were taken during his last two trips to Odessa – in 2014 and 2019. Thousands of images have been compiled into a photo book. It entered the top of the best art collections for 2022 according to the American magazine Time. The Ukrainian Museum in New York was only able to place part of the images.
Elena Emchuk
“They have been preparing for a long time. Ukraine is preparing. And it’s terrible to constantly have the thought in your head that at any moment someone can come into your house and take everything from your life, from your family or your soul. Ukraine, Ukrainians for me are now the bravest and most amazing people in the world, ”says Olena Yemchuk.
A chronicle of love for Odessa in the language of portraiture, chiaroscuro and details. The photos only show young faces. A generation to whom a great war will come very soon.
media Russian Service: You said you still communicate with most of these people, with your heroes. Do you know what happened to that girl?
Elena Emchuk: I don’t know. And I think about it all the time. I look at his face and think about what could have happened. She is just a child. I then asked him and other guys: why are you going to the army? They said – the obvious reason – Putin took Crimea, what should we do? We must protect our country.
In April, the Polish edition of Vogue magazine featured a cartoon by Elena Yemchuk on the cover as a sign of solidarity with Ukraine.
Model and photographer Helena Christensen came to the opening of the exhibition to support her friend.
“I have been to Ukraine several times. And what is visually presented here reminds me of what I saw when I was there. Elena has a wonderful eye. She is good at finding objects and is good at combining and using natural light. Ukrainians are so beautiful in appearance. They have a soul in their eyes,” says Helena Christensen, who is also a Goodwill Ambassador under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In this post, Helena Christensen visited Ukraine in 2017, when pro-Kremlin separatists were only fomenting conflict in the eastern regions of Ukraine. From this trip, Helen brought back countless photographs of homeless elderly people and children. Documentary evidence of the aggression which, in February 2022, Russia escalated into a full-scale war.
Helena Christensen
Director of the Ukrainian Museum Peter Doroshenko presented at the opening another work of Elena Yemchuk, a completely new creative project – the film “Malanka”. The mystical story takes place during the celebration of the pagan festival “Malanka” in an unnamed village somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains. All the filming was done before the pandemic, and on screen, as in the photographs, there is angst and a presentiment of trouble.
“There is more fragility in the world today than ever. Now a lot of things are broken,” says Peter Doroshenko.
The museum also features photographs of Ukrainian military commander Max Levin – he and his partner were found killed in Kiev region’s Buchansky district in April last year. An investigation by the international human rights organization Reporters Without Borders revealed that the journalists died after being interrogated and tortured by the Russian army.
Elena Yemchuk has never been in a combat zone and, according to her, could hardly be a frontline photographer:
“I deeply respect frontline photographers. I mean not only their ability to be brave, but also their ability to focus. I don’t think I would have succeeded. I wouldn’t be able to hold the camera when something terrible is there.”
GA: “When in an interview they ask – who are you? What do you answer – Ukrainian or American?
“I always said I was Ukrainian. Even before the war. I can’t be someone else. Only Ukrainian.”
