Back when Paraguayan artist Mauri was growing up in Asunción, she was surrounded by fabrics and sewing machines from her mother’s workshop. Her passion for art grew from there. After learning English and living in the United States, Mauri, who prefers to be called just by her artist name, moved to France and began learning the French language at institutions such as the French Alliance Paraguay’s capital, where she is presenting her work in October 2025. The Asunción Times went to have a look.
A curiosity for languages
Paraguay, being a nation with two official languages, sparked Mauri’s curiosity for languages and culture as well. “Language became not just communication, but a bridge into new worlds,” she says. Now, back in Paraguay after years in France, she is presenting her work, which she has named “Un Ayer Que Vuelve”: A Yesterday That Returns.
In France, Mauri discovered what would become her forgotten treasures. She refers to that as discarded books, fabrics, and papers that seemed to have lost their value. While those objects might have lost value to one person, they might gain value to another.
“Rescuing materials also means rescuing stories, giving them another chance to exist.” What seemed like discarded, became raw material to narrate new memories and build an intimate and poetic visual world.
Fragments of another time and place
Her creative path began with scrapbooking. This form of art is tied to memory and photographs. Mauri’s creative mindset slowly evolved into collage and stitching as freer, more personal ways of expression. For her, “Creating is like breathing. It is how I let emotions and feelings out”.
That is what Mauri carries back with her to Paraguay: fragments of another time and place, transformed into the present. “I like to think that everything we touch holds a story. But when it is forgotten, it can become another story, in our hands.”
With her vintage collage, made of book pages, music partitions, and many other items, she keeps the past close and connects it to the present. There is no “official way” to know which pieces of paper go with another, but when Mauri knows, she knows.
“Un Ayer Que Vuelve” by Mauri
Until 9 October 2025, the Media Library of the French Alliance in Asunción opens its doors to Mauri’s exhibition. Un Ayer Que Vuelve tells the return of yesterday. The exhibition offers a pause in the daily rhythm, allowing visitors to reconnect with the essential: memory, craftsmanship, and the excitement of giving new life to cherished memories. While there are multiple magnificent collages, you can also see a tajy or lapacho tree made of recuperated material, and a very old typewriter, reconnecting the past with the present.
The following official guided tour of the exhibition is scheduled for Tuesday 30 September 2025 at 17:00. The tour is free of charge. As part of the exhibition, Mauri offers a vintage collage workshop experience. Using authentic materials, participants will experiment with papers, textures, and shapes to construct their own narrative, telling their story from fragments of the past.
Workshop coming up
The following workshop is scheduled for 4 October 2025. This creative event is also held at the French Alliance. The cost is Gs. 150,000 (approximately US$21), and includes the material. For more information, follow Mauri on Instagram.
The exhibition is supported by the French Embassy in Paraguay and the French Alliance of Asunción. The event is made in collaboration with Ararokái Photography, Instituto de la Imagen, Jovechag Rincón del Pasado, and Amada Alcaraz Interiorismo.
