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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. 

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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

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2023

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2023

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2023​​

 

2023

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2019

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2018

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2017

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2018

2017

2017

2015

 

2016

2015

2019 - ongoing

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2023 - ongoing

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2024

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2020-2023

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2020-ongoing

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2022-ongoing

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2018-2020

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2018

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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

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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

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