Jenia Fridlyand, Mango Season, 2026

Jenia Fridlyand grew up in the Soviet Union in the years just prior to perestroika. Visiting Cuba in the second decade of the twenty-first century, then, felt like an uncanny homecoming. While both tangible and familiar, the grim fabric of the communist quotidian kept unravelling for Fridlyand under the bright, tropical sun. With a large-format camera and a photographic practice rooted in the American tradition, Fridlyand traveled throughout the island during several extended trips. She intuitively trained her lens on moments and scenes with the potential of holding both the known and the novel—from a pair of donkeys silhouetted against hilltops, a customer at a barber shop and a pair of rocking chairs seen through an open door, to drops of sweat on a man’s curved back and sweet fruit hanging ripe on a tree.