Maia Cavendish

Maia is an urban designer, planner and Brisbane based artist. As a practicing urban planner/designer, Maia understands the complexity of urban systems which allows her to see the wide-reaching benefits of facilitating art in the public realm, particularly from a community perspective. Her passion and interest in these fields intersect through her investigation into the implementation of informal urban art in residual urban spaces.

Maia’s professional and artistic endeavours are influenced by being neurodiverse, with this informing her enthusiasm for building community capacity and knowledge around public art, planning and urban design.

Her studies include a Master of Science (Urbanism Studies) from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm and a Bachelor of Urban Development (Urban & Regional Planning) from Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She currently works in Meanjin/Brisbane as an urban designer and planner at Archipelago, tutors urban design at QUT, and is a multi-disciplinary artist working on commissions and exhibiting locally. After living in Sweden, she worked in Denmark and Colombia for placemaking and urban design practices.

Initially completing a Bachelors thesis focussing on sanctioned and unsanctioned public art in Brisbane, while undertaking her Masters studies in Sweden she progressed this thinking further, undertaking primary and secondary research on informal public art in residual urban spaces in Stockholm. Maia sees that informal urban art offers an opportunity to strengthen place identity and for public expression. Maia’s area of study will explore opportunities to increase the level of participation in informal urban art in a way that benefits the community.