YULIA MAHR
Visual artist exploring themes of memory, identity, trauma and belonging.
Clothes-wise I’m a minimalist, but not with jewellery, and I think that’s rooted in my grandmother, Judit Weiner. She spent 20 years in South America, which is why all the jewellery she wore was South American and, although I was raised in Budapest, I was brought up speaking Spanish in this house that felt like it came out of Santiago, Chile.
My grandmother was born in Budapest too, but she lived for 20 years in Santiago with my grandfather. They were doing social housing projects. She was a multilingual internationalist, an incredible lady with so much passion in life. She spoke nine languages fluently and she was a simultaneous translator who worked with Che Guevara and Castro and Pablo Neruda, and all these people.
One of the things that I remember the most about her is the fantastic jewellery and brightly coloured things that she would wear. Whenever I think about these things I’m instantly transported back into her warm embrace and the smell of her perfume.
I was raised on the stories of her time in South America. The brooch is a funny little thing. It’s of its time, it’s a stereotype. It’s a locally made brooch [of a man] with a sombrero and a poncho and boots that was given to her.
I remember how important it was to her, but I don’t really remember the story of who gave it to her and why. But I very much associate it with her time there and with the stories that she used to tell me, and that’s why it means so much to me. It’s not the figurine [itself], it’s the connection to those stories.
The necklace is more something that she would wear. She would always wear these very brightly coloured necklaces. I remember her like a ray of sunshine, all the colours would come out of her and if you imagine Budapest in the 1970s, it wasn’t really like that. But she would walk around with this Frida Khalo- esque sense of colour.
I don’t wear them because they feel like a part of the past. To me, they are a memento of this human being who I adored so much. But I don’t really feel like they are my story, so I keep them in a box that was also from her, this beautiful, very simple jewellery box that she brought over from South America. It’s the one thing I kept from her when she died. I was asked “What would you like?” and that was the one thing, her jewellery box, because that’s what I remember the most about her — her jewellery.
As told to Annachiara Biondi