Mari Mahr

Modernist architecture, Latin-American Spanish, Hungarian, Jewish roots and Christian values become the building blocks of my existence. Identity cards, faraway travels, the sea, become of great fascination to me. Back in Hungary, social concern becomes mixed with ideological indoctrination. Now in London I have the comfort of being a curious amalgam of all these different cultures.

Born in Chile, educated in Hungary and now living in London, I see my life as a series of chances — some missed, others taken. The chances I have taken are the pillars of my life story.

The photographs are autobiographical. I have been searching through events — major and minor, recalling vague and hazy memories as well as those of great vividness and clarity.



		The history of modern Europe has determined the broad outlines of all our lives. Just before the Second World War my mother, a young woman, nervously moving from one address to another, meets my father, a Hungarian architect settled in Paris. They marry and get on the last boat to sail to a faraway unknown country: Chile —the only country that would still take refugees. And so my fate is decided long before I am born.
Modernist architecture, Latin-American Spanish, Hungarian, Jewish roots and Christian values become the building blocks of my existence. Identity cards, faraway travels, the sea, become of great fascination to me. Back in Hungary, social concern becomes mixed with ideological indoctrination. Now in London I have the comfort of being a curious amalgam of all these different cultures. Born in Chile, educated in Hungary and now living in London, I see my life as a series of chances — some missed, others taken. The chances I have taken are the pillars of my life story. The photographs are autobiographical. I have been searching through events — major and minor, recalling vague and hazy memories as well as those of great vividness and clarity.