Yulia Mahr:
Speaking in Dreams
Thu 9 Oct - Sun 2 Nov 2025
Speaking in Dreams is a new site-specific installation by interdisciplinary artist Yulia Mahr, created for our historic Capability Brown-designed chapel.
Using sculpture, photography and elemental materials such as ash, charcoal and taxidermy, Mahr transforms the space into a striking meditation on the threshold between dreaming and waking.
Inspired by the crows that inhabit our grounds, and drawing on the fertile folklore traditions of many European countries – particularly Hungary, where Mahr was born – the installation explores themes of anxiety, displacement, transformation and ritual. Mahr’s work is deeply personal yet invites universal reflection, encouraging us to reconsider our relationship with nature, spirituality and the unseen forces that shape our lives.
This powerful new installation marks the beginning of a long-term creative collaboration between Yulia Mahr and Compton Verney, as we continue to explore the intersection of art, place and the human experience.
About the Artist
Yulia Mahr (British, Hungarian born, 1967) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses multiple mediums embracing innovative and experimental creative processes.
With a past marked by geographical displacement, Mahr’s personal history infuses her creative process. Spanning lens-based work, sculpture, and installation – and dissolving boundaries between creative disciplines – Mahr explores the intricacies of human existence, focusing on transformative states, including birth and death, as well as issues of the body and gender. Her work examines human interconnectedness and commonality, revealing what unites us from the cellular level to other species and the universe.
Interested in spirituality, religion, and ritualistic practices, Mahr considers the impermanence of our place in the natural world and the passage of time. She highlights social, socio-political, and environmental themes, including displacement, community, and alternative models beyond the capitalist framework. Her work explores the politics and challenges of representation, modes of display and questions of ownership.
Mahr’s experience working in theatre and her rigorous academic background in politics, history and visual anthropology shapes her work, bridging the realms of Social Science and art.
In 2024, Mahr presented Unbecoming, a solo exhibition of new works at Wehrmuehle Museum, Berlin, curated by Margot Mottaz (Head of Curatorial at Superblue).
Mahr has received critical acclaim for the immersive audio-visual projects co-conceived with composer Max Richter, including VOICES (2022) and SLEEP (2017), an immersive eight-hour music piece played live at The Sydney Opera House, SXSW, The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, the Philharmonie de Paris, and the Barbican. Further contributing to the interdisciplinary arts ecosystem, in 2018, Mahr and Richter developed and curated Sounds and Visions, a series of concerts and film screenings at The Barbican.
Mahr is also the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Studio Richter Mahr, alongside composer, Max Richter. Nestled within 31 acres of woodland in Oxfordshire, the minimalist and sustainably focused studio is a multidisciplinary innovative incubator.