Māra Vija Pelēcis (Pelēce) was born of Latvian immigrants in the United States in 1971. Māra studied in the US and Germany, receiving her BA from St. Olaf College in 1994 in Studio Art and Media Studies. In the 1990s she spent time between the US and Latvia, for a short time even working as a Cultural News Correspondent in Riga while conducting research on Latvian Contemporary Art. For over 15 years Mara has also exhibited her photography and installation work in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Riga. She has received numerous grants and fellowships for her work in both art and film, including the Jerome Emerging Artists Grant (1996); Fulbright Fellowship (2000 and extension in 2001); the Latvian Ministry of Culture Fellowship (2002); Latvian Capital Culture Fellowship and Grant (2002 and 2003); Minnesota State Arts Board Grant (2004), and Jerome Media Arts Grant (2005). Upon completing her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2000, Mara relocated to Riga to work on her documentary feature Starp Latvijām (Between Latvias). In 2010 she completed her documentary film Souvenirs: Healing After War.
United States of America