Meet Maia Weisenhaus | Photographer and Science Researcher

We had the good fortune of connecting with Maia Weisenhaus and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Maia, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I studied biology and photography at Bard College, and after graduating I was swept into the busy world of neuroscience research. It was a subject I loved, and because of that I kept pursuing it for several years in labs at Vanderbilt, Columbia University and the USC. By the time I reached my mid-twenties I started to feel like I was craving a very different lifestyle from my day to day life of a bench-top researcher, which was very isolated, repetitive, and controlled. I think I’d been aware of it for some time, but hadn’t felt brave enough to consider anything different or leave behind all the work I’d done to establish myself as a scientist. With the encouragement of my family and friends, I took a couple side gigs in photography- just one off day jobs- and the undeniable vigor I had when I moved through the world with my camera made me feel that I had to at least try to pursue photography as a full time career. I also felt like if I went for with the intensity and discipline of a science researcher, it had to lead me somewhere. So I really spent the first half of my twenties working very had in science labs with little social life and taking very few risks, and am now, at 27, in the somewhat terrifying pursuit of what is most exciting and meaningful to me.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I stopped doing neuroscience research a couple years ago because that lifestyle wasn’t right for me. As far as the subject matter, there is nearly nothing that excited me more than science. I am a huge fan of biology, chemistry and even math and physics although I took fewer classes in those areas. The cool thing about moving into an artistic career is that for some reason there’s a big crowd of people who share my interests in science and science-fiction. I started to publish my science-fiction writing and to make photo series that went with each of them and I was really surprised that people were reading my work and engaging with it all. As a trained biologist, I make an effort to dig deep into the material and most of my ideas are just backlogged ideas I had while working on experiments at the lab bench. I am interested in sci-fi visuals, and a visual aesthetic and “vibe” of course, but I want my ideas to go way beyond that. Most of my writing and visual art is in the genre of feminist science-fiction. Through writing short stories I force myself to play these ideas out until their end, and to really decide how science affects my idea of our world and ourselves. Lately I am also playing with bringing chemistry into my photography as well, photographing women surrounded by colorful flames that I make through burning salts like a grand version of the classic chemistry “flame test”.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’m from Brooklyn, New York but I live in Los Angeles these days. I am obsessed with the nature around LA. My favorite places are Palos Verdes beach and Malibu Creek State Park. Palos Verdes beach is amazing and something about how the rock has surfaced over time has revealed incredible rocks that are so unique that some people go there just to rock collect. I’m a sucker for tide pools as well. Malibu Creek State Park is incredible and vast and looks so unlike earth in some areas that it’s been used as a site to film movies set in pre-historic time or on other planets.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My sister Chloe has always been encouraging me to do the things I love, pretty much at all costs. As a neuroscience researcher, I used to feel like I didn’t have the time or bandwidth for anything outside of my intense work days. Despite how busy I was, she always was trying to get me involved in creative projects, and when I did get involved it was an exposure that really impacted me. I loved it, and it gave me a crazy type of energy that I hadn’t felt for a long time- just the burning desire to do more, like when you’re a kid and you don’t want to go to bed because you’re so invested in some game that you can barely wait until tomorrow.

Website: https://maiasaavedra.netlify.app

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maia_saavedra_/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maia-weisenhaus-5a6565125/

Other: TikTok @maia_saavedra

Image Credits
Image IMG_8451 taken by Jupiter (@elijahjupiter)