Maya Chowdhry is an interdisciplinary artist working with sound art and installation; utilising interactive audio and sensory input to invite audiences to respond to, and create their own journey, through her climate justice artworks. In 2024 she was a Factory International Fellow, exploring personalisation in large-scale immersive works.
She was part of SUSTAIN Artist Digital Exchange Programme, a project initiated by Castlefield Gallery (UK) and the Aarhus Centre for Visual Art (DK) which facilitated explorations on how artistic practice can contribute to low-carbon cultures within planetary limits. Her sound installation, Waves, exploring the transformation of the River Irwell due to climate change, was exhibited as part of ‘In the Making’ at Salford Museum & Art Gallery, 2022.
Her digital poem, Soil Voicemails, commissioned for the ‘Crossed Lines’ project in collaboration with the Science Museum (2020), explores trans-species calling: insects leaving ‘voicemail ’messages in the soil for other insects; humans creating computer-generated whistles to telephone dolphins; and the parallel of telephone-tapping to eavesdropping by túngara frogs.
In 2021 Maya was artist-in-residence for Critical Poetics: Care Of… at Nottingham Trent University, with a particular focus on inter-species care. Galvanising Change, an interactive live art piece examining climate anxiety, was presented at Hulme Community Garden Centre, and created as part of Net//work Residency with The British Council and Digital Art Studio, Belfast. She has continued development on this project though an #OpenLight knowledge exchange commission with scholar Erinma Ochu, Associate Professor in Immersive Media, The University of West England.
Maya was ‘Ignite’ artist-in-residence with scholar Effie Papargyropoulou, Leeds University 2020, extending What’s Eating Reality, an immersive live art dining experience exploring food justice. The artwork was originally commissioned and presented at Lancaster Arts in 2018, and subsequently toured to Arnolfini – Bristol's International Centre for Contemporary Arts and ArtCity Festival. From 2020-2022 she collaborated on Walk with Us, a site-specific walking app exploring climate change, coastal erosion and resilience, co-created for The National Oceanography Centre.