Returning home, photographer Yelena Yemchuk finds beauty in a country at war

There was no doubt for photographer Yelena Yemchuk that upon returning to Ukraine, she would encounter the pain and loss that comes with the day-to-day reality of Russia's full-scale war — but she wasn't quite ready for how much love there was to go around, 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 told 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 at the Naked Room Gallery in downtown Kyiv and will run until Nov. 30.

A visit to Ukraine in August 2024, her first since the start of the full-scale war, set in motion "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 first part of the project, "Ithaca," which opened in France earlier this year.

Yemchuk originally hadn't come to Ukraine with a specific project in mind. 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 prepare an exhibition, her visit took on a new direction.

"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 said.

"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 project, Yemchuk also began digitizing negatives from the 1990s and early 2000s, including photos taken from her first trips back to Ukraine. This led her to expand the project's scope, adding previously unseen images and new collages made from her archival photographs.

"I always felt like Ukraine was a woman."

Yelena Yemchuk at 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 with her family as a teenager, yet Ukraine and its influence have remained central to her life and work. Her art has been widely celebrated for its deep exploration of memory and identity.

Few artists move between disciplines as fluidly as Yemchuk. She's built a long and accomplished career over the years that spans fine art and pop culture, from evocative projects like her photobooks "Odesa" and "Gidropark" to directing music videos for the Smashing Pumpkins.

The surreal, dream-like atmosphere in much of Yemchuk's photos comes from her use of light and color. Instead of relying on the precision of studio lighting, she prefers the shifting, natural light of the outdoors — where color feels alive instead of controlled.

"Malanka," Yemchuk's photobook, which documents the famous New Year's folk celebration in Ukraine's southwestern Chernivtsi Oblast, is one of the best examples of this. The snow-blanketed village provides a muted, wintry backdrop that contrasts beautifully with the revelers' vibrant, traditional costumes.

Yemchuk says she always pays close attention to how the subject, clothing, and environment interact, letting her intuition guide her choices so that light becomes both a medium and an emotion.

For Yemchuk, it's not her use of light or color that sets her photography apart, though. She prefers to speak of the relationships she forms with her subjects, and how building that quiet trust allows her to capture an image that's both 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 explained.

"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 process of choosing who to photograph is "instinctual" rather than a conscious choice for Yemchuk. Walking down the street, surrounded by hundreds of faces, she says she may just feel compelled to suddenly stop that person and ask them if she can take their picture.

"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 author:

Kate Tsurkan here, thanks for reading my latest piece. For photography lovers, Yelena Yemchuk is the definition of a living legend, and so it’s a great achievement to see artists like her exhibiting their work in Ukraine during the full-scale war.

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