M A R A

Weltmuseum Wien × CEU SYMPOSIUM with contributions by Gewächshaus: Critical Fabulation and Anonymity in the Weltmuseum Wien’s Photography Collection, Gewächshaus presents: Cinematic approaches to reconstructing from apparent absence. Featuring filmmakers: Tayla Myree (@everythingtmy ), Melanie Sien Min Lyn (@xiumin3k ), Mara Chavez (@mar.achavez ), Maeva Ranaivojaona (@maevaranaivojaona ) Join us for a symposium and peer exchange engaging with sensitive and often unseen photographic archives. The programme explores experimental narrative forms and asks how histories can be reconstructed from absence - and who gets to tell them. Through talks, screenings, and discussion, the session brings community-based artistic practice into dialogue with academic and institutional frameworks. Developed in the context of the @weareceu x @weltmuseumwien course on “Photographer Unknown,” the event reflects on anonymity, power, and archival gaps - opening space for speculative approaches that re-read, re-imagine, and expand access to museum collections. 🗓 17 April 2026
⏰ 10:00–14:00 📍 Weltmuseum Wien, Heldenplatz, 1010 Wien, Austria Link in bio to register for the event. Image: Mara Chavez @mar.achavez #gewächshauscommunity #gewächshausnetwork #bipocfilmmakers

Really happy to to share part of 𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑳𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒑𝒆𝒔, a hybrid video born out of doris duhennois’ research and our creative collaboration in Saint Lucia and Martinique. More to come soon! It’s shown alongside beaut works in the framework of the curatorial project 𝑳𝒆 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒅𝒖 𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒗𝒂𝒊𝒍 𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆: 𝑳𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒑𝒆 by @dereckmarouco exhibited at @laboratoire.kontempo in Mokili na Poche, Kinshasa with the support of @goetheinstitut . It’s the first creative output of this work in progress ⛰️⛰️⛰️ 01 speculative monuments by @alnima & me 02 re-enactment: return of the inniskilling monument 03 exhibition announcement - Mokili na Poche, Kinshasa 04 speculative landscape 05 & 06 exhibition publication designed by @annas.works 07 opening Laboratoire Kontempo 📷 @sym_touch_

Say hi to our newest team member, Mara Chavez (@mar.achavez )! ✨📹 Mara is a Mexican-Austrian filmmaker. Her work combines different methods of research and storytelling to explore the links between community, extraction, memory and migration. Mara will help us with Community Management and ensure that activities of Gewächshaus are flowing smoothly. Welcome, Mara! 💫💜 #NewTeamMember #FilmmakersOfColour #Community

We are so excited to announce that ‘Video of the Month’ is finally back! Every month, you can watch a new one 24/7 at Hegelgasse 14, 1010 📍 Snippets from the Video: Déchoukaj | Healing Landscapes | 13 min (work in progress) | 2025  A film by Mara Chavez @mar.achavez in collaboration with doris duhennois @ris.dodu 
  
Déchoukaj | Healing Landscapes is an experimental documentary that explores questions of memory, erasure and repair in relation to public space in the Caribbean. The project deals with the topic of success in two ways: Firstly, it looks at success as the ability to control a narrative, partake in official memory making and its transmission. By entering in conversation with those first affected by the legacy of colonialism, the work shifts perspective and redefines success as the ability to resist, reclaim and re-imagine.  In Haitian Creole, “déchoukaj” means uprooting, a term now adopted throughout the Lesser Antilles to refer to the destruction of statues built during colonisation. Taking these sites of memory as a point of departure, the film explores how post-colonial communities redefine material heritage. Déchoukaj | Healing Landscapes is rooted in doris duhennois’ doctoral research on colonial memorialisation and Mara Chavez’ blended media approach. By layering oral history, 16mm and 3D animation this first chapter of a film in progress attempts to understand how people feel, live and resist in spaces containing racist symbols and creatively re-imagine public space.

@ris.dodu and I have been collecting inscriptions around monuments and elsewhere 01 monument, fdf, martinique 02 monument, fdf, martinique 03 wall, fdf, martinique 04 agave, vauclin, martinique 05 agave, vauclin, martinique 06 caribbean sea

3D Scanning dismantled statues in Martinique is our first step in trying to find out what future spaces of memory and commemoration could look like in the Lesser Antilles. It forms part of our larger creative research exploring the reassessment of colonial landscapes in the Caribbean. 01 3D scanning of dismantled statue of Joséphine de Beauharnais 02 3D scanning of dismantled statue of d‘Esnambuc 03 Scanned inscriptions on the remaining pedestal of d‘Esnambuc monument In collaboration withe the baddest ass PhD person I know @__ddoriss___ Big thanks to @superrrnetwork and @allianzfdn for their #risktakersfellowship that provides me with support and space to explore and develop new ideas for this project.

always a bit late in announcing… but very excited to start sharing isthmus in the americas after nice lil run in europe! catch screenings at @festivalequinoxio in bogotá @lightfilmfest in NYC #studentworldimpactfilmfestival @alucineto and #torontomulticulturalfilmfestival in toronto @fecibacine in mexico city big thanks to star 🎥 teammate @coco.power.ranger and @nasimluczaj doing her magic with words

ISTMO, a narrowing of land (2021) Cinematography: @coco.power.ranger & Mara Chavez

ISTMO, a narrowing of land (2021) Cinematography: @coco.power.ranger & Mara Chavez

ISTMO, a narrowing of land (2021) Cinematography: @coco.power.ranger & Mara Chavez

An attempt to spy on a well

can‘t have it all