Mara Lea Hohn

Mara was born in 1989, the year in which the borders of the Iron Curtain were met by the Green Belt, a nature reserve along the death strip through Europe that became home to endangered species of birds and plants.

Growing up in a little town in Southern Germany she always felt a strong relation to the magic of plants. She is strongly influenced by the spirit of her Great-Grandmother Anna, who became a healer while fleeing with her four kids and a little hand-waggon during WWII in which she had stored and conserved plants that she had found along the way to make medicine out of them.  

In her performative and community engaging work she focuses on the hybrid beauty of roots and identities, the healing powers of ancestral knowledge, the creation of common spaces of healing, unlearning and growing. All of which contribute to an understanding of belonging and identity that defends indigenous healing practices for plants, animals and human beings and that revives synergies between humans and ecosystems.  

In 2019 she created the Nomadic Healing Wheel, a participatory healing garden with an intercultural community of gardeners in Bolzano, Italy. The Nomadic Healing Wheel is based on indigenous teachings of Medicine Wheels; the oldest natural apothecaries in the world and the healing secrets of their ancestors the gardeners valorized their roots by growing and cultivating a sinergetic garden of healing plants that has become a common space of respect, care and appreciation.  

In 2020 during the pandemic she founded Nomadic Seeds with Delaine Le Bas – an online exchange platform about healing plants and communities that also became part of the Roma Biennale 2021.   Mara holds a Diploma in Fine Arts and Photography from Bauhaus University in Weimar, a Master in Intercultural Pedagogy and Art Education, has studied the Master of in Art in Context at University of the Arts in Berlin and is a certified dancer and educator for somatic dance.  

For the last phase of the Roma Biennale Mara will realize a living Memorial for Nomadic Healing at Nachbarschaftsgarten Dammweg in collaboration with Schlesische27 and the Syrian Female Collective GENA.  

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