European folklore’s long and rich tradition dates back thousands of years, probably to the Neolithic Age. Yet, despite the technological onslaught of modern life, the artform continues to thrill and terrify in equal measure.

A comparatively modern tale is Youth Without Aging and Life Without Death, published in 1862 by Petre Ispirescu – although the story has far older roots, adapted as it was from Romanian folklore.

Among those inspired by the tale over the centuries is British photographer Laura Pannack, who in November published a book of her images under the same title. It chronicles her regular visits to remote parts of Romania, particularly the desolate Transylvanian region of Maramureș where time seems to stand still.

Perhaps more than any other part of what is one of Europe’s most underdeveloped countries, Maramureș’s beautiful scenery and the simple lives of its inhabitants allowed Pannack to confront her constant anxiety about the dissipation of time.

Pannack told CGTN: “I was trying to escape something that is impossible to escape, which is my constant fear of time running out. I jam way too much into my schedule, so my relationship with time is quite complex.”

Her first visit to Romania in 2012 also helped Pannack process a shocking tragedy. “After three or four years of living in a house with strangers, one of the boys there – who was around my age – randomly fell off a cliff and died in a freak accident,” she recalled. Her shock led to what Pannack described as “that cliché of thinking life’s really short. I was looking to confront what happened where I had quiet, and time and space to process it.”

Decamping alone to Romania with her camera became a productive method of processing Pannack’s grief. An early conversation with a hired translator helped her project take shape.

She explained: “I was speaking with my translator on a constant basis on our car rides. On the third or fourth trip he said ‘everything that you’re describing that you’re feeling really reminds me of this tale Youth Without Aging and Life Without Death.’ 

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“The minute he said that I thought it was a great title and the more I explored the tale I realized how much it resonated with everything that I was feeling and saying. Then it became a question of how could I not just visually execute the images that would accompany this tale but use it as a catalyst for ideas and create something entirely new.”

The folktale itself was initially passed to author Ispirescu by his father while growing up in Bucharest. It contains philosophical ideas about man’s place in the universe, immortality and the cycle of life. 

According to Pannack: “Essentially the tale is based around a prince who’s been promised that he will live forever. When he’s 18, he discovers that his father was lying to him and embarks on a quest to find this land where time does stand still. 

“He encounters beasts and obstacles along his journey but finds it and when he’s there he’s very happy. However, one day he wanders into the Forest of Lament and begins to miss all the things and people that were in his life previously. He’s warned not to, but returns to find his loved ones have all perished and then he dies.”

Pannack says the tale has a clear moral. She explained: “The idea is that time is not something that you should chase in terms of having an infinite amount. It’s actually about who you spend it with and how you spend it, which is a lovely moral. For me, that’s very true in that I can be quite stoic and I believe I’m helped by being present in the moment, instead of fearing the future.”

The haunting quality of the photos in Pannack’s book, particularly those of the villagers in Vișeu de Sus where she was invited to stay in their home by a stranger, convey her emotional journey. The stranger’s gesture was typical of the warm welcome she says she received throughout her travels across Romania. 

She said: “I could choose any image from the book and tell you how my relationship with the tale encouraged me to create it. Often I saw something out of the car window and literally stopped the car, got out and photographed it.”

She explained: “There’s a line in the tale that says ‘All of a sudden the forest began to move.’ If I hadn’t read that line I probably wouldn’t have stopped at that forest and taken the photo which looks visually like a bit of a mirage.”

One of the most striking photographs in the book is entitled ‘Heaven and Cyanide.’ “That photograph was a real construction,” she said. “I’d researched this lake and visited it several times because I knew it was polluted with cyanide and might be certain colors one day, but different colors another.

“Then I bought a mirror in a flea market because I knew I wanted to reflect the heavens above, the hell beneath, with the earth beneath. I wanted the mirror at a certain angle so that you couldn’t see the sky, so there was an infinite point of unknown. So some photos were constructively and conceptually thought out, whereas others were simply more reactive – even more so when working with people.”

Thousands of photographs taken in three-to-four-week bursts over a five-year period make up her collection which Pannack first began displaying in 2016. Pannack mostly shoots on analogue for her self-initiated projects and this time chose to only use expired film to tie in with the themes of expiration and the fragility of life.

This year she was asked by publishers Guest Editions to make them into a book which includes large format photographs, polaroids, drawings and Pannack’s own personal notes. 

Pannack hopes they will inspire viewers to examine their own concept of time and fragility. 

Pannack is now halfway through the second chapter of this work, this time focusing on tales from Germany’s Dubener Heide region, with the work being supported by The Passage residency. 

“Photography is about capturing timelessness,” she reflected. “For me personally a photographic image is more open to interpretation. The anonymity of images opens up multiple opportunities for narratives.”

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