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Art

Unbecoming with Yulia Mahr

June 19, 2026

For the release of her debut monograph, Unbecoming, Yulia Mahr transformed Shreeji News into a celebration of her artistic vision. As a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker, Mahr is best known for bringing together sculpture, lens-based work, and installations that tackle important social issues, such as challenging restrictive beauty standards through her The Church of Our Becoming series. Beyond being an artist, Mahr and her husband run a residency programme to support artists.

Unbecoming continues the creative exploration of her 2024 exhibition of the same name, which was originally shown in Berlin. The exhibition was primarily comprised of black-and-white lens-based works that explore the cyclical nature of life—a continuous transformation from birth to death. Capturing this exhibition alongside more recent works by Mahr, Unbecoming is available at Shreeji News, Marylebone, London, as well as online.

After meeting Yulia on June 5th at the book's opening, I caught up with her to learn more about her artistic world.

Text and Interview by JohnOswald Crichton

Why did you want to recontextualise and expand upon Unbecoming through a book?

Ah, I am a lifelong collector and lover of photography and art books! I adore poring over images, when you can dip in and out of the worlds and work without anyone watching. These gorgeous moments of visual poetry that can stay with you all day. One person’s vision reflecting back at you. I mean a tube journey is just not the same when you are looking at Graciela Iturbide’s work. Or Raymond Meeks. Or your world not as closed when you are reminded of what Theaster Gates has done. Books as small works of art in themselves, that people can carry around with them have such power! So that … and the advice of fellow artists that I followed who have been invaluable in offering reflections on my work and how it evolves.

What conversations do you want people to have in response to Unbecoming?

Unbecoming began as a solo show in Germany two years ago and has evolved out into a universe of work exploring our tendency to love only fragments of life. We celebrate youth but struggle with aging, we celebrate birth but hide death, we celebrate perfection but conceal damage, we celebrate beginnings while fearing endings. Childbirth is hidden, physical damage is disguised, death is ‘unbecoming’. Our old are separated and rejected. Yet these are all things that belong together. These experiences are central to life. As a body of work then it asks whether beauty might exist across the whole cycle (it does!), and rejects our narrow definition of this beauty, concentrating instead on transformation. Decay and decomposition are extraordinarily beautiful processes. Beyond the immediate, if I was to hope for one response to seeing the work, it would be a reflection on how contemporary unchallenged attitudes tied to consumerism and capitalism have ultimately shaped a reduced attitude towards the whole spectrum of existence.

How do you find inspiration for your methods of art-making, and how do you decide which medium best supports an idea?

Great ideas come from honesty and vulnerability. I view success not from a commercial standpoint but from how open I have managed to be. Honestly, things work best when I get out of the way and let ideas flow. When I don’t think too much. But this has to be rooted in a period of ‘composting’ – research, reading, thinking, walking, talking – a constant roving curiosity - that allows ideas to churn and percolate and gain substance. And then you have to just trust that the right ideas will appear. You also have to allow yourself to make mistakes, to go down wrong paths. The best ideas often come from ‘doing’, from material leading the conversation.

I am drawn to deep black, but also gray and muted tones. I can just see better that way, surrounded as we are by so much colour. The world is too cluttered for me. I search for the simple and spacious.

Why do you think challenging and analysing classical art, such as ancient Greek sculpture, is so important?

I am fascinated by classical art and particularly Greek sculpture exactly because it has been so extraordinarily successful. It’s one of the most powerful attempts in western culture to fix a set of ideals … and these ideals continue to influence how we imagine beauty, power, gender and the human body today. You just have to spend five minutes on Instagram to see how these ideas continue to shape how we see ourselves. An extraordinary living, all-pervasive inheritance that continually shapes contemporary dialogue and particularly our ideas on what a normal or valuable body looks like. It’s arguably a vision of bodies that is gaining renewed traction as the world swings to the right.

I am not particularly interested in rejecting the classical canon for the sake of it. I am rather asking what happens when certain ideals become so deeply embedded in culture that they appear natural and inevitable. The question then for me is not whether these sculptures are beautiful. Many of them are, but rather what cultural assumptions and power do they continue to carry and should these be challenged. Just who has been historically included within it, and who excluded. What new stories can be made possible. There’s a whole universe of work I am creating tied to these questions and it’s something that’s still evolving in my practice.

In The Church of Our Becoming, I took the monumental scale, authority and dignity of Greek sculpture (my images are 3.5m tall) but portrayed bodies that the classical traditions have largely excluded or mocked: trans bodies, non-binary bodies, or women as they choose to be represented.

In The Quiet Uncertainty of Stone, I studied damaged classical statuary that were originally sculpted in reverence of youth and beauty, and as an ode to permanence, and argue that the cracked, weathered, composite and aging sculptures as they have evolved over time are far more meaningful.

Could you please tell me about your residency program, and why support for artists at all stages of their careers is so vital?

The residency is built on a simple belief: people matter more than outcomes. We live in a culture and era that constantly asks what value can be measured, quantified or delivered. Art rarely develops in that way. Meaningful work often emerges from periods of uncertainty, reflection, reading, conversation or apparent inactivity. I wanted to create a space that trusts artists enough to allow those processes to happen.

At its most fundamental the residency is a week or two in the countryside at our studio. Composers, choreographers, actors, and musicians tend to use the world-class recording facilities available here or studio space, which we provide for free for Residents or at cost for Visiting Artists. Writers, and artists tend to concentrate around our woodland and the hut spaces we have in the middle of it. Being totally immersed in nature is like a healing balm for creative minds. It’s an opportunity for everyone to unwind, but also to be surrounded by people ‘who get it’, who are on the same journey. While they are working, we are working. We feed folks and look after them. They have access to the vegetable garden and all that’s grown there. There’s a never-ending supply of coffee with a great coffee machine. No-one has to provide us with evidence of work when they leave. It’s just not like that here. While we do tend to ask for a proposal, and look for artists who are truly dedicated, it’s up to the individual artists to decide what they spend time on.

After the residencies are over we try to connect folks either with labels or each other, if it seems like it might help them. We try to offer opportunities for performance where we can. With the composers and musicians, we programme their work as often as possible. We can’t help everyone in this way but have been able to with increasing frequency. It’s about artists helping artists. Away from commercial label or publishing pressure and returning to why we all got into art in the first place. In this way we operate in almost an inverse way from most residency programmes.

We tend to support those that have already published or produced work at some scale – because frankly you may have a book or two out, or an album or two, or seem relatively successful, but rarely are you making a living from your work. Rarely are you receiving the meaningful support and mentorship needed to take you into a deeper practice.

Art

344 Days of Marie Tomanova

June 11, 2026

Marie Tomanova, Czech-born but NY-based artist, cordially invites you to her first solo exhibition show this summer. Three Empty Weeks in July opens for view at the Harkawik Gallery June 12th until July 11th. 344 self portraits of herself throughout the year of 2022, save for three weeks in July. This precise detail, earning the project’s title, unintentionally acknowledges human imperfection, recognizes the incompleteness of identity, and welcomes the idea of failure.

The series is aimed to challenge the Western notion of perfection. When most would answer this prompt with mirror pictures or simple selfies, Tomanova opts to flex her creative photographic muscle. Over a thousand instant films capture her creative endeavor and the range it invites. Tomanova's work is one of captivating compositions that captures color and movement in a special, nostalgia-inducing way. Her photography is rooted in up-close and personal portraits, with this project being the most personal and therefore vulnerable.

Interview and Words by Amara Korinko

Other than the year of taking daily self-portraits, how would you define your 2022?

Wow.

You took an editorial approach to capturing yourself daily, staying true to your expertise. About your Self Portraits in Nature series, you claimed self-portraits must be nude so there’s less layers to hide behind. How do you use clothes to hide and from what?

I am not sure what an editorial approach is; but that categorization doesn’t feel quite right to me, for whatever reason—the project was driven by the concept, the idea of the self-portrait, and consistency. And it wasn't a documentary. Maybe it was about finding myself for myself, or showing myself to myself, for myself. I really felt that in 2021, I had wandered far from having a sense of creativity in my life, so I decided to take a photograph a day for myself. But the consistency was so hard; it really went against my personality; it went against what I visualize as creativity. And maybe that is why I ended-up nude in so many of the images. I was being free against what I had set as a constraint, i.e. the idea of a photograph a day. Maybe I was rebelling against that rule I had set for myself.

What inspired each image composition for the day? Were these ideas you'd been wanting to capture or did the day's events lead to the photograph?

Some days I was super excited to take photographs, and some days I dreaded it. But I had to take photographs because that is what I set out to do. There was no overriding inspiration for the day — the photograph would just happen when it was meant to happen.

I saw this garden in which no matter where you stand you can only see 14 of the 15 rocks that are there, and I thought about this incompleteness of identity and really the folly of completeness or really knowing yourself, or anyone else.

The project is titled Three Empty Weeks in July because you took a consistent break from taking portraits for that time. Yet, this detail emphasizes the theme of human imperfection and the incompleteness of identity. What halted your progress halfway through after staying consistently dedicated, and what motivated the revival?

The ideas of imperfection and incompleteness of identity really emerged in a powerful way through the process of doing this work. And they were something I did not expect. They were not the aim of the project. I found taking a photograph a day to be very difficult at times — like I said earlier, I am not disciplined in that way. I think for some people, such a project would be easy, but for me it was not. And that I was having a hard time is something that was difficult for me to accept about myself—I wanted it to be different. I wanted each day to be a wonderful creative experience that would fill me with deep joy and fulfillment — haha — but it was more like a sword over my head at times, and not in a medieval erotic, or sexy way. But I kept going because I don’t give up.

And then, I just kind of… stopped. And then I was devastated, and then I knew I had to start again. So I did. And I was in Japan and I had tried to get to Ryōan-ji (a Zen rock garden) in Kyoto every time I was in Japan, but I was always so busy in Tokyo with exhibitions, book launches, etc., that I never went. But I finally did in 2022, and I saw this garden in which no matter where you stand you can only see 14 of the 15 rocks that are there, and I thought about this incompleteness of identity and really the folly of completeness or really knowing yourself, or anyone else. And I was inspired. That idea of something being missing went from a sense of loss to a sense of truth.

How much time did you find yourself dedicating to this project daily? Did you find the photos getting in the way of living? Or living because of the photos?

The time spent would all depend; it could be 60 seconds — see a photograph, feel a moment, done. Or it could linger all day, searching, searching, sometimes with half-attention, waiting for that moment, that place, that idea, that feeling. I am not sure I ever lived for the photographs—they got in the way too much for that. Some days I would be very creatively driven, and some days I would be in despair.

With social media and phones, many people choose to document their life — from the routine to the extreme — in digital photos. Do you think people should spend the time and effort taking photos of their daily life, including themselves? What is the balance between living in the moment and preserving the moment to live in again?

I definitely think my phone does not add to the quality of my life. People should do whatever makes them happy. I am moving further and further away from social media. I walk most mornings in Central Park with my tiny little dog and I am so in the moment — today I smelled some roses and watched her swim and fought with her over a stick, and found $60 in the grass, which was the most money I have ever found. For me, these walks are perfect, and I am in the moment. And sometimes, I take photos on my phone so I can share with others these moments, and I guess remember them sometime in the future. The balance between living in the moment and preserving the moment is the balance.

I think it's a human instinct to preserve fleeting things. Good memories preserved in pictures to access later like a physical memory, youth preserved in polaroids, faces known preserved on film, photos themselves preserved in physical album books and digital backup drives. This project preserves yourself everyday for a year. Would you agree, and if so, where do you think our desire to preserve stems from? Alternatively, tell us any thoughts on the art of letting go.

I am so good at letting go. And I wonder if my background has something to do with it. I am from a place — Sudetenland — where there was so much displacement since the 1930s. First it was the Germans and then it was the Communists. Back and forth people were driven from their homes. I didn’t experience that firsthand, but it has been baked into the generation of people there. And I wonder if that filters into me somehow. And I also wonder if why I take photographs is because no one took many photographs of me growing up — I have very few. And yet I am obsessed with taking photographs and they are about self, and memory, and place, and home, and displacement, and of people to who I somehow relate — an empathic mirroring.

Home is a recurring theme in your work and something else I think humans are obsessed with the preservation of. We all have the home we’re born into and a home we build for ourselves. You are home to Europe but built a home in NYC; what sensation does “home” give you? What sensation did you feel when you knew you had found it?

I am still so confused by this idea of home. And for me, almost on a daily basis, I still feel torn, or at least pulled, between places. Place and home has been such a big part of my work. My 2018/19 It Was Once My Universe work was all about returning home to Czech after being unable to go back for 8 years and the disjunction I found being there — I had been gone too long, but also I hadn’t; it was still home. I had changed. And these themes are still ones I work with regularly, as recently as a museum show in Czech in which I unpacked the archive of my room into the space of the museum. I wonder how Three Empty Weeks relates to ideas of home.

Did the project help reveal something about your own life/self to you?

I travelled a lot in 2022. Sometimes, I look back and I cannot believe how much I have done — and I see it in the photographs. Photographs are magical in so many ways. It is easy to forget that today. The biggest thing the project revealed to me is this idea of the never complete self and the acceptance of that as the process of living — that is growing.

From so much time taking and analyzing pictures of yourself, did you grow closer to your body/appearance or did you find it more foreign?

This is actually something I do not think about, but it is a great question to think about in terms of one’s body and their relationship to it. And it is a very difficult question to think about. The relationship people have with their own bodies is so personal.

I intentionally shot the entire series on instant film. So it exists the way it was photographed, no changes, no tweaks, no retouching. I wanted to capture and see myself as I am. My goal is to continue this body of work and photograph myself for a year every five years. It’s a mission that I am excited about even though I know I will struggle with it. But the longevity concept in projects are very valuable to me. And I think over time it will bring even more questions about self acceptance. Or maybe not. We will see.

Art

Seeking Refuge in Art and Imagination— The Legacy of Erwin Olaf

June 11, 2026

Erwin Olaf (1959–2023), the internationally acclaimed Dutch photographer, is known not only for his powerful avant-garde images but also for the larger legacy he leaves behind, one that extends beyond photography itself. He was a man who carried authenticity with him wherever he went, whether previously as a journalist or through his career as a photographer, with his visual work serving as a continuation of that same spirit. Olaf was unafraid to engage with the themes and conversations that shape our lives— gender, the human body, sexuality, and politics— constructing his own visual world, his own reality, within his work.

We sat down with Mischa Cohen, who is not only the author of Erwin Olaf: The Biography (Hannibal Books), but a dear friend and admirer of his work from the beginning. Cohen had the privilege of documenting and following Erwin Olaf for years, gaining access to his archives and his life, speaking with former lovers, friends, colleagues, gallerists, curators, muses, and family, up until the final period of his life. Together, we spoke about collaborative creative exchange, Amsterdam’s infamous Club RoXY, and the powerful legacy both Olaf’s and Cohen’s work will have on future generations.

Words and Interview by Bernice Nguyen
Photography by Erwin Olaf

First and foremost, why Erwin Olaf?

Three reasons: the man, his work, and his time. I have known Erwin Olaf’s work from the beginning. He started out as quite controversial—his pictures were sometimes shocking, often with a sexual aspect. You were either intrigued by them or you hated them. He was a one-man avant-garde. I was intrigued.

And I saw how his work developed, and how his power of expression increased. He ended as a respected artist, exhibited in the best museums all over the world, and as the acclaimed photographer of the Dutch Royal Family. His work is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum and was shown alongside Rembrandt and other masters. After his death in 2023, the idea came up for a large retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the leading museum of modern art in the Netherlands. It was visited by a staggering 380,000 people. His work is very personal but always connected to the world around him. He was trained as a journalist and remained outspoken in his political views. He also stood for absolute freedom in those early years, the 1980s. In Amsterdam, you had the Roxy, our Dutch Studio 54, where anything was possible. He stood for liberation of the individual, especially the queer community, and in a time when those liberal values are under attack, I wanted to portray Erwin Olaf and his time.

I’d imagine both actively witnessing and writing a book about the life of someone else is not an easy feat. Can you tell me a little bit about what that process was like?

It was very special to witness someone like Erwin Olaf over the years. I followed him for years, went with him on trips to exhibitions in Munich and Paris, and watched many photographic sessions, like a fly on the wall. But I also spoke with his family, friends, gallery owners, curators, and colleagues like Rineke Dijkstra, who, together with Erwin, was part of a new wave in Dutch photography, although their work was very different.

There was a generation of Dutch photographers who contributed to making photography an art form: Erwin Olaf, Rineke Dijkstra, Inez & Vinoodh, and Dana Lixenberg. Of those photographers, Erwin Olaf and Inez & Vinoodh (who are now based in New York) moved furthest away from “reality,” and both also worked in commercial photography. Rineke Dijkstra became firmly established in the art world, while Dana Lixenberg perhaps remained closest to documentary photography.

In the process of writing and documenting Erwin Olaf’s life, do you think you guys had a creative exchange?

Yes, I think so. The book is of course my work, but over the years we became close, and in a way it was a form of cooperation. And Erwin Olaf was inspired by our project. He asked his models, mostly friends and people he met in the nightlife of the 1980s and 1990s, to come back to his studio and be portrayed again. In this series, Muses, you see a portrait of his generation. In a way, together they form a kind of self-portrait of Erwin.

His work explores themes of identity, loneliness, sexuality, power, and human vulnerability. I think that’s what has made it feel timeless, both during and after his passing. Do you think these themes were something he naturally embodied, or were they deliberately constructed in his work?

That’s difficult to answer. I think the themes you mention were exactly the ones that mattered most to Erwin Olaf. He had lived them, so to speak— he experienced them and transformed them into art. He struggled with accepting his homosexuality, and he also understood loneliness and the feeling of being an outsider through both his own life and observing others.

It came to him naturally in a way, but at the same time he thought deeply about the staging of his photographs and constructed his own world, his own reality, within his work. So it is not purely an intellectual exercise, but it is not entirely spontaneous either.

In the synopsis, you mention that Erwin found his muses in Amsterdam’s Club RoXY. Looking back, how important was that cultural moment in shaping not only Erwin’s career but also the broader artistic and queer communities he became part of?

It was a time of liberation, and Club RoXY was one of its symbols. For Erwin Olaf and many others, it was a refuge, especially for trans people who had nowhere else to go without being discriminated against, and for the queer community more broadly. Everything was mixed, and everything felt possible. It was also one of the first places where XTC and house music became very popular. Erwin was into XTC, though I think he preferred softer drugs.

What is something about Erwin Olaf that readers might not guess about him?

One thing is how much he valued craftsmanship in his art. After spending time working extensively with photoshop and digital image editing, he eventually returned to some of the earliest photographic techniques.

I’ve noticed a lot of young creatives are getting into photography and creative direction nowadays, which I think is great. What advice would you give to those entering the scene, and what do you think Erwin Olaf would advise as well?

Erwin preferred interns who didn’t come from fancy art schools, but from vocational education. In fact, after his untimely passing, the Erwin Olaf Foundation continues to support and help apprentices from those schools. So it is all about craftsmanship, combined with a very personal imagination. “If I want to see reality, I’ll look out the window” was one of his phrases.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from the book?

All of the above. In a time when all kinds of freedoms are being limited, homosexuality is increasingly rejected by some younger groups, the so-called “manosphere” is growing, and imagination is often overshadowed by weapons and war, you can still seek refuge in art and in imagination— and at the same time maintain a fighting spirit to defend the important social rights we cannot afford to lose.