Unternächte by Elena Helfrecht

“Faced with a time of disasters and profound upheaval, we invent stories and rituals to navigate chaos and uncertainty.” — Elena Helfrecht

'Unternächte' takes its name from what Elena Helfrecht’s grandmother and great-grandmother in Bavaria called the nights between Winter Solstice and Epiphany, a liminal period known more widely as the Twelve Nights of Christmas. When the old year has not quite ended and the new one has not yet begun, the boundary between the living and the dead is said to blur as spirits descend into the mortal realm.

Helfrecht grew up with the customs and stories of this time. Since 2018, the Bavarian photographer has been returning to her birthplace in the Fichtel Mountains to revisit the eerie, mystical atmosphere of these nights and interrogate the folklore she inherited. Her black-and-white photographs examine and reinterpret the tales and traditions passed down through generations of women in her family, who sought guidance and a sense of control on the uncertain path ahead.

“Myths make things explainable that are otherwise not rationally comprehensible, such as death and the question of the afterlife. Customs convey a sense of meaning and control over things we have little influence over.” — Elena Helfrecht

Though emerging from autobiography, 'Unternächte' reaches beyond family stories. Threshold moments like the Twelve Nights, an ending with no clear beginning in sight, have always carried a collective unease. Today, political rifts, environmental crises, and technological disorientation echo that same in-between feeling. As we grasp for new rituals and beliefs to feel secure in a fragmented world, 'Unternächte' reveals how the artist’s foremothers drew on these customs, resonating with a much wider cultural moment.

Through photography, Helfrecht explores how we turn to lore when the ground feels unsteady. She stages, re-stages, and reimagines family story and local tradition until the lines between memory and invention, between comfort and threat, blur. Her imagery is rooted in the tradition of folk horror, where the same beliefs that unite a community can, under pressure, turn against those within it just as easily as those outside it. The same fire that keeps a house warm can burn it down.

'Unternächte' itself mirrors this ambiguity. Rather than a photographic survey, 'Unternächte' is designed to evoke an old collection of fairy tales, something to return to and retell. Meaning shifts with every reading. Like the stories it draws on, passed from woman to woman, it is a tale that grows with us, carrying both comfort and warning.