Maia Iotzova has always been intrigued by the beauty of daily life and the playful nature of art. She was born in Bulgaria where she received a strong base in the traditional artist mediums of drawing and painting, and graduated from a major Technical Secondary School receiving her diploma in photography. During those years Maia was also deeply touched by the political upheaval that swept though Eastern Europe.

After coming to Canada she attended University of Guelph in Ontario where she Majored in Fine Arts, but also had the opportunity to delve into Plant and Natural Sciences, and Ecology.

Always challenging herself as an artist, Maia started experimenting with the mixing and matching of a variety of mediums, bringing art outside the gallery setting and dealing with issues close to her heart, like environmental degradation, in often subtle and humorous ways.

One of the themes that has been especially fascinating to her is the concept of waste. She created The Pinhole Project, a fun, community-based initiative where people made pinhole cameras from garbage and learned to take photographs with those cameras.

In the last five years Maia has been working in documentary film and digital media. Her first film ‘Grass Through Concrete: The Struggle to Protect the Red Hill Valley’ documents the dramatic fight to protect the last large green space in the heavily industrialized east end of Hamilton, Ontario.

At the moment her work concentrates on exploring environmental themes through playful and poetic storytelling. Maia is currently developing a new documentary, Green Dream, in which she explores our relationship with nature through our attitudes and everyday interactions with Green.