Mara Magyarosi-Laytner is a photographic artist who pairs multiple experimental photography 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), she is an artist, educator, and curator in the Detroit area. The artist and her work have been shown in many spaces across the United States including the Griffin Museum of Photography, 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, Float Magazine, Detroit Metro Times, The Hand Magazine, and Aeonian Magazine. In 2022, her work from The Untended Garden was a Photolucida Critical Mass Finalist. Her first monograph, The Untended Garden was published by Starling Common Press in February 2024. As a curatorial focus, Mara cofounded and is the co-executive director of NOVA24, an international photography + film festival located in Detroit, Michigan. The festival launched in July 2024 with 35 events at eighteen locations in the Detroit Metropolitan area.
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.
