Maya Pen Raquel
Artist & Organizer
Maya is a community-taught interdisciplinary artist and organizer based in New Orleans.
Maya’s work, both as artist and organizer, investigates how mythology—both ancient and contemporary—can be harnessed to dismantle colonial impositions on our relationships to body, home, and time. Drawing on conventions of allegory and magical realism, Maya explores the power of dis- and re-embodiment, placing the bodies of storytellers within her fantastical realms, or positioning fantastical creatures within realistic, contemporary settings. Through these spaces, she untangles the accepted origins of our homes and bodies, elevating the truth of our collective imaginations and degrading the American mythocracy. Her practice spans a range of mediums—including film, mask and creature-making, writing, immersive performance, community story circles, and installation—all of which aim to cultivate spaces where the past intersects with the future in a new mythical realm, one where collective healing is possible. Some of the frameworks that guide Maya's work include narrative therapy, the “becoming mythical” of history, spiralic time, partcipatory action research, comparative mythology, and dreams.
Maya's recent creature photography and mixed media art has been displayed at galleries such as the Southern Exposure gallery (San Francisco), Bark gallery (Berlin), and Staple Goods gallery (New Orleans). Her writing appears in publications such as Tilted House Review and Metal Hurlant.
She has had the pleasure of participating and learning from local programs such as New Orleans Film Festival’s Emerging Voices fellowship, and is a recent winner of South Pitch, where she received the Warner Brothers' Innovation Hub award for her feature length screenplay, “Flammable Water.”
As co-director of the film production collective Studio Lalala, Maya seeks to provide free studio space, equipment access, and film education for photographers and filmmakers of color. Through her work with Cooperation New Orleans, she helps organize the support of Black and Indigenous worker-owned cooperatives. Her work with Cooperation Gumbo seeks to archive and uplift the Black cooperative histories of New Orleans to pave a cooperative way forward. Maya also serves on the editorial staff for the literature collective Tilted House, and is a member of Latinx art collective, Collectiva Manos.
In tandem with Maya's work as a storyteller and visual artist, she is an active organizer within the solidarity economy movement, which reimagines a future where people have what they need and are free from the prison of extractive economies. She is deeply grounded in collective processes, and wants to challenge the way artists are forced to isolate themselves from their current context in order to thrive.
exhibitions & performance
Afuera, Adentro, Antenna Gallery
Group Gallery Show - Artist
We've Been Among You, Staple Goods
Solo Gallery Show - Artist
Bark Berlin Gallery
Group Show - Artist
We've Been Among You, Southern Exposure
Solo Gallery Show - Artist
Mary Beth Hotel & Gallery
Art Curator
The Songs We Left Behind, The Kimmel Center
Writer and Performer
Portal Juice, Art Klub
artist | creative director
Tongue in Cheek, Headlong Studios
curator | artist
One Fest, One Love Community Center
writer | director | producer
Future Is Female Festival, Headlong Studios Philadelphia
Contributing monologue writer/director
A Laced Late Night Experiment on Post Humanism
Contributing playwright
New Voices Festival, Temple University
playwright
Young Voices Festival, Drake Theater
playwright
The Agency, Myvision Theater Ensemble
playwright | director | scenic designer
projects & community
2024
2023
2023
2023
2023
2019
2018
2017
2018
2017
2017
2015
2016
2015
2019 - ongoing
2023 - ongoing
2024
2020-2023
2020-ongoing
2022-ongoing
2018-2020
2018
2015-2016
2016-2020
2020
2017
Studio Lalala - QTBIPOC film production cooperative | New Orleans
Codirector
Colectiva Manos - Latin American arts collective | New Orleans
Member
Beloved Community Incubator - Solidarity Economy Movement Organization | Washington, DC
Participatory Action Research Cohort Member
Tilted House - Small Press Literature Collective | New Orleans
Visual Arts Editor
Cooperation New Orleans Loan Fund - Solidarity Economy Movement Organization | New Orleans
Steering Committee Member
Cooperation Gumbo - research creation project uplifting Black cooperative economics in New Orleans
Organizer/artist
La Plante - Music Venue and Community Space | Montreal
Collective member
Philadelphia Jazz Residency | Philadelphia
Lyricist/performer
Puentes De Salud - Free Clinic for Undox Immigrants
Teaching Artist
Yes! And Collaborative Arts
Teaching artist
Emergency Circus - Social Circus
Touring Performer
Philly Young Playwrights
Youth Mentor
Fellowships & Residencies
2022
2019
2018
2018
2017
Emerging Voices - Filmmaking Fellowship | New Orleans
Fellow
Dragon Dance Theater | Toulouse, France
Puppeteer
Le Grande Costumier | Montreal, CA
Intern
Art Klub | New Orleans
Resident
One Love Community Center | New Orleans
Resident
mentions | panels | Publications | Awards
South Pitch - Regional Film Competition | New Orleans Film Festival
Winner
Metal Hurlant Anthology - Publication
Writer
Tilted House Review | New Orleans
Writer
New Voices Festival - Philly Young Playwrights
Winning Playwright
Young Voices Festival - Philly Young Playwrights
Winning Playwright
South Summit | New Orleans Film Festival
Panelist
Remaking the Economy: Building Regional Solidarity Economies | New Economy Coalition
Panelist
2022
2021
2021
2015
2017
2023, 2024
2024