{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1751376"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1751376/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2024NT8720/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2024NT8720/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2024NT8720","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2023NN2303","copyright":"© Anton Kusters","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1751376","accessionNumber":"\nPH.177-2023","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[{"title":"Life Chances","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"Mari Mahr was born in 1941 to Hungarian-Jewish parents. She was brought up and educated in Santiago de Chile and in Budapest, where her family returned after the Second World War. Originally trained as a photojournalist, Mahr became a press-photographer at the Cultural Department of the Hungarian News Agency and completed an apprenticeship with noted Hungarian photojournalists Endre Friedman and Gábor Pálfai. In 1972, she moved to London to study at the Polytechnic of Central London. Dissatisfied with documentary, finding it misleading, she began a new photographic career experimenting with photographic tableaux and photomontage techniques. \r\n\nMahr’s artistic practice is shaped by her family and its history. She incorporates found and cherished objects into her work, creating photographs that are highly tactile, mysterious and dreamlike. The pictures feature totemic artifacts from Mahr’s childhood or periods of travel, yet address universal human concerns of belonging, loss, memory and identity.\r\n\r\nIn ‘Life Chances’, 1996, Mahr considers the history of modern Europe and its role in determining the broad outlines of her life. She notes: \r\n\r\n‘Just before the Second World War my mother, a young woman, nervously moving from one address to another, meets my father, a Hungarian architect living 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 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. 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.’\r\n","physicalDescription":"Photograph","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Mari Mahr","id":"A10299"},"association":{"text":"Artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"Paper","id":"x30308"}],"techniques":[],"materialsAndTechniques":"Archival analogue Print. ","categories":[{"text":"Woman photographer","id":"THES380381"},{"text":"Photographs","id":"THES48910"},{"text":"Woman Artist","id":"THES387590"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"DOP","id":"THES291628"},"images":["2024NT8720","2023NN2303"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"DR53","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1996","earliest":"1996-01-01","latest":"1996-12-31"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Donated by Mari Mahr","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"66","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"93","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Photograph by Mari Mahr from the series 'Life Chances', 1996\n","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["PH.177-2023"],"accessionNumberNum":"177","accessionNumberPrefix":"PH","accessionYear":2023,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"","id":""},"number":"13"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-09","recordCreationDate":"2023-04-03","availableToBook":false}}