Elida Maiques is a Wicklow-based artist with roots in Iximulew (Guatemala) and Spain. Her work, often in collaboration with different groups, has been exhibited in museums and art centres like CentroCentro Cibeles, Madrid (Spain), IVAM (Valencian Museum of Modern Art), València (Spain) and others. She has a background in drawing and has edited award-winning publications as member of Polen (Spain) and Stray Lines (Ireland).
She continues to explore the boundaries of comics with other disciplines such as dance and music. In 2015, a series of botanical drawings became her long-term project I Am a Forest. It now involves seed-gathering, tree propagation and wildlife/art workshops.
Maiques sees in these commoning practices real collective thought and action eroding the assigned places (gender, class, age…). In 2021 I Am a Forest focused prominently on birdsong, music anthropology and archaeology. It became a non-hierarchical forest performance. Short film I Am a Forest, based on the filmed performance, premiered in the International Film Festival of Morelia (Mexico) in 2022 and is currently in the film festival circuit.
Her current work includes sculptural materials such as willow.
She was Associate Artist at the Mermaid Arts Centre (2022-2024) and Seed Librarian of Bray Library since 2022.