Movement Love

Maggie Benoit’s objective is to produce enriching experiences that bolster the arts alongside entrepreneurial efforts in Atlanta. Her focus is to strengthen a community driven network, a conversation, a connection to resources and a place for beings to express constructively. This way the individual and community grow by staying curious, asking questions, creating solutions, as well as learning constructs of both personal and social space. The question arises, “how does one define the ability to connect the intimately personal to another tangibly?” Such an expression means finding love for self, love for another, love for something that holds meaning. Sharing said experience defines a landscape of varied media through intentional integration of work and life.

As an immigrant who has dived into different cultures, my artwork relates to the essence of who we are, where we have come from, and where we are journeying. This approach is a powerful facilitator of culture, identity, and growth. Originally from Madrid, Spain, I came to Atlanta in 2014 by way of Canada, France, and England, and my current body of work explores the relationship between place and identity. Using psychogeography as a field to inform my work, I focus on the idea that identity forms by giving specific cultural believes and emotional meanings to space. I see it as an experience created by the setting combined with what a person brings to it. Since my life has been marked by mobility, I have emotional and cultural attachments to multiple places and cultures and therefore distinct identities associated with each place. I explore the dislocation and adaptation of people who decide to uproot themselves and cross borders. For many people today who are displaced because of various social, political, or personal reasons, the concept of home is probably best recognized as a sense of being between places, instead of being rooted in one particular place and one unique identity. My background is a fusion of minors in languages and literature, theater, and fiber arts, and I am coursing studies at GSU University in a 3D studio art program. I am a 2015-16 Hughley Artist Fellowship recipient and currently a selected artist for the Creative Program, with studio residency at The Goat Farm. I am also the co-founder of Brutal Studio, http://www.brutal.studio/about/ an all-lady run design and build studio in Atlanta, specializing in experiential events and installations. So far, my work has been featured at MOCA GA, MINT Gallery, WonderRoot, Swan Coach House Gallery, Deer Bear Wolf, ArtsAtl, and Commoncreativeatlanta.