Mara Magyarosi-Laytner is an artist, educator, and curator in the Detroit area. Her artistic work pairs experimental lens based methods to explore identity through a symbolic and poetic lens. A graduate of both College for Creative Studies (BFA | Photography, 2012) and Savannah College of Art and Design (MA | Arts Administration, 2016, MFA | Photography, 2022), the artist and her work have been shown in many spaces across the United States and internationally, including the ScotiaBank CONTACT Photography Festival in Toronto, Canada, and exhibitions in Italy, France, and Hungary. Mara's artistic and curatorial projects have been featured in multiple articles and periodicals, including Complex, Detroit Metro Times, The Hand Magazine, and Aeonian Magazine. In 2022, her work from The Untended Garden was a Photolucida Critical Mass Finalist. Her monograph, The Untended Garden, was published by Starling Common Press in February 2024.
Mara is an advocate for photography in a multitude of ways. She proudly is the founder of the Silver Water Collective, an all women artist collective celebrating the work of fine art photographers across North America. Additionally, Mara is the co-founder of NOVA24 | Photo + Film Festival, coming in July 2024, featuring the work of innovators and experimenters in lens based media throughout the Detroit area and beyond.
Mara is also an award winning educator, combining her love of photography and her passion for connecting with people of all ages. Whether teaching photography to high school students in her classroom studio as the Digital Photography & Media Instructor at William D. Ford Career Technical Center or coaching fellow educators through the Design Thinking Process with the Henry Ford Learning Institute, her focus is on pushing forward culturally responsive education through art and design. Her educational accolades include being a semifinalist in the 2018 MAPSA Charter School Teacher of the Year awards and the 2019 Inspiring Educator Award through the Southeastern Michigan Region Scholastic Art Awards.
