Dr. Maya Stovall

Biography

Maya Stovall is a contemporary artist and ethnographer whose practice focuses on monumental questions of human existence. She grew up in Aarhus, Denmark, and spent the past year in Detroit engaging with city life through her project, Liquor Store Theatre. This four-year-running initiative consists of a four-volume, thirty-plus video episode meditation on urban environments, and it was included in the Whitney Biennial in 2017. Maya conducted anthropological field research and staged documented dance performances that foster conversations in streets, sidewalks, and parking lots of the neighborhoods in which she lived. In the summer of 2017, she was a visiting artist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Aarhus where she created a new body of work called Havnepladsen Ballet, staging performances in discussions centered around a public fountain in the largest harbor of Scandinavia. Currently, her work is featured in the solo exhibition 'Maya Stovall: Liquor Store Theatre Performance Films' at Cranbrook Art Museum, which is set to be on view in March 2018. She is also a participating artist in the group exhibition 'Fictions' at the Studio Museum in Harlem, showcasing her piece 'Untitled' from the found glass series. Over her career, Maya has exhibited and performed across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and her work is part of the permanent collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Research Interests