MAIDA is a love story, a coming home story. An ever evolving project and expression of ancestry, homecoming, diaspora forced and chosen, memory learned and lost, reclamation and preservation. 

Maida Branch was born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is of Pueblo, Ute, Genízara descent ( P ‘ æ ‘ kilâ, Pecos Pueblo, Dilia, NM) - her family has been living on Pueblo Territory since time immemorial.

Inspired by her family and the land from which they came, she founded MAIDA in 2017 - a collective of Indigenous and Indo-hispano artists.

Artists stories are told by Maida Branch via thoughtfully, collaboratively curated products/objects, photography, and short films about community, place, and re-matriation. Storytelling is also shared and told with / shed project, run by her partner Johnny Ortiz - together they have a farm in Northern New Mexico, where they live in a 200 yr-old adobe home and raise criollo cattle, and churro sheep.

Maida has an MFA from the New School. Her work has been featured in Vogue, Architectural Digest, Form & Concept Gallery, Elle Decor, Santa Fe Arts Institute, Botanical Colors, and RISD Nature Lab ‘Regeneration Series’, and most recently the first Re/WORKED circular design summit supported in partnership with the United Nations.