Jake Eshelman

Jake Eshelman follow American, born 1989

Lives in Houston, Texas, United States

Projects/Portfolios

Heisykha

Introduction

What does it mean to grow what you eat—and how can our connection with the land influence our relationships with one another?

In 2018, I began documenting the daily life of a family living off the land in Heisykha, a tiny agrarian village in central Ukraine. Though they live much as their ancestors did hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago, we can all see aspects of ourselves in this single Ukrainian family. Their household is one filled with love, chores, and the occasional conflict. The father, a veteran of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, works as a handyman. The mother is the head teacher at the village school. Their two teenage daughters enjoy dancing and secrets and Instagram. And yet, beyond the common roles and technologies that we now associate with everyday life, their family also embodies the spirit of who many of us used to be.

Photographing in Heisykha is to continually encounter a way of life that is simultaneously new to me, familiar to us all, and increasingly precarious for those who live it. The family is deeply and inextricably—rooted in their connection to the earth. Every household in the village grows and raises their own food. In summer, the trees produce more fruit than people or their animals can eat, even when made into preserves and stockpiled in the cellars. Families welcome each new season with small altars and communal celebrations. Calendars burst with designated days to celebrate individual plants, such as The Day of the Poppy, a quiet observance that persists despite it being technically illegal to grow poppies in Ukraine due to a national effort to combat drug trafficking. Even internationally recognized holidays are grounded and embellished by nature-oriented customs. New Year’s, for example, isn’t complete without village children coming into your home in the wee hours of the morning to wake you up by loudly intoning well-wishes and tossing wheat kernels all over your floor as a gesture to bring you good harvests in the coming season.

To date, neither communism, capitalism, nor Christianity could fully displace or disenchant nature’s central importance in Ukrainian culture. Today however, many aspects of village life in Ukraine that have thrived for centuries are increasingly threatened by new and unprecedented challenges. Like in other villages throughout the country, prolonged economic instability is forcing young adults to leave Heisykha to find work in cities or even abroad. This newfound diaspora is making it more difficult for communities to pass down the knowledge, skills, and customs that have been central to Ukrainian culture for generations.

How village families farm and feed themselves is also evolving. As is the case around the world, agriculture throughout Ukraine is undergoing rapid industrialization. With government policies placing a heavy emphasis on productivity and financial gains in agriculture, many small farms are being increasingly displaced and consolidated into large monocropping operations. In the region surrounding Heisykha, these land-use changes are encroaching to reveal a constellation of villages scattered across an otherwise monoculture landscape.

Beyond the immediate socio-economic and political challenges, the family is also experiencing the tangible impacts of climate change. In only the three years since beginning this body of work, their village has withstood unprecedented weather extremes from the record-setting heatwave in August of 2018 and the first snowless January anyone in Heisykha could remember in 2020. If these conditions continue, families worry that the soil will be less able to support the crops they rely on.

In spite of the many changes, there is an undercurrent of self-reliance and savoir-faire that remains a foundational aspect of village culture in Heisykha. It seems significant that as our collective global economic, social, and political systems buckle under the pressure of the coronavirus pandemic, people around the world are returning to the land in their own ways. Seed sales have skyrocketed as people have begun to plant their own gardens, reclaiming a forgotten knowledge and sense of empowerment that were once second nature. In that way, perhaps the unfolding story of this single Ukrainian family shows us what’s possible when we meaningfully connect to the land that supports us—and, more saliently, what’s at stake when we don’t.

To see this project online (including exhibition images), visit www.jakeeshelman.com/heisykha

Telling of the Bees

Introduction

Echoes of the Witch

Introduction

Coming of Age

Introduction

Biography

Jake Eshelman (b. 1989, USA) is a photo-based artist and visual researcher exploring the complex relationships between people and other-than-human beings. Working to transcend the notion that humanity is somehow separate from—or superior to—the natural world, his work creates opportunities in which to (re)consider our ecological kinships. Through an intimate and intuitive documentary practice, his recent projects investigate how interspecies interactions in agriculture, conservation, and spirituality can illuminate new ways to address anthropocentrism, human chauvinism, and the unfolding implications behind the Enlightenment rationalization of nature.

Eshelman has exhibited work internationally, most notably at Vantaa Art Museum Artsi in Helsinki, Finland; Contemporary Calgary in Alberta, Canada; Houston Center for Photography in Houston, TX; The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at Cambridge University, UK; Rhode Island School of Design, RI; The Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, OH; The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington D.C.; Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, UK. His work is in the permanent collection of the Chicago Design Museum and has also been included in independently published photo books, collaborative artist books, and even a children’s book by Simon & Schuster encouraging aspiring creatives to pursue artistic careers. He has also been featured in numerous publications including National Geographic, Texas Monthly, The World Sensorium / Conservancy, Trouvé Magazine, and Then There Was Us, among others. He is a recent recipient of the City’s Initiative Grant administered by Houston Arts Alliance, as well as the Idea Fund individual artist grant funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and administered by DiverseWorks, Aurora Picture Show, and Project Row Houses.

Complementing his creative practice, Jake is also a writer and emerging scholar. In addition to his forthcoming publications through the Sophia Centre Press and the University of Reading, Jake also serves as the Contributing Editor of Ecological Thinking with Plantings Journal. Beyond the written word, he thoroughly enjoys conversing and lecturing about the issues he explores in his work, as well as the value and validity of artistic research practices.

Jake is currently pursuing his MA in Ecology & Spirituality from The University of Wales, Trinity Saint David. He holds a BA in Classical Literature, with a concentration in mythology, hermeneutics, and reception theory from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX, as well a minor in Studio Art and Art History. Jake is also a member of The Fairy Investigation Society. He currently splits his time between Houston, TX and The Berkshires.

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