I am a designer currently living and working in the Netherlands. With a practice established in Interior Architecture and Social Design, my work centers on critical and analytical approaches to design and research. Within this sphere, I consider the effects of design and designing on bodies and the shaping of identity. As such, I investigate relationships between bodies and space, objects and systems and media narratives. I curiously deconstruct objects, spaces, sites, material artefacts or technologies to reveal how we – as individuals and communities - are positioned, organised and directed through design and media systems. These deconstructions are articulated in a visually analytic way and materialised as critical tools to spark dialogue. My investigations confront a range of intersectional concerns, which frame concepts of gender, race, class and sexuality from a design and also a power perspective.

My position and approach centers on questioning design and media practices through queer and feminist frameworks. Within this, pedagogic exchange is integral to my practice. I am a mentor and guest lecturer at the Design Academy Eindhoven, and The Royal Academy of the Arts in The Hague. For these institutions, I collaborate with bachelor and masters students on relationships between gender and identity in design. These collaborations work to establish accountable foundations from which to approach design practice.

Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs*

Background

Until 2012, Maher practiced and taught interior architecture and design in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia—during this time being awarded the SIDA Foundation Mary White Memorial Scholarship from the University of New South Wales, nominated for the Vice Chancellors Distinguished Teaching Award while teaching at RMIT University and lastly, in 2011, becoming the recipient of the SIDA Foundation Travelling Scholarship. In 2014, upon completion of a master’s degree in Social Design at Design Academy Eindhoven, Maher was awarded the Keep An Eye Foundation Grant and Gijs Bakker Award. In 2015, they became the recipient of a Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie Talent Development Grant. In 2016 receiving the Stimulerings Fonds Internationalisation Grant as well as a Keep an Eye Grant for DAE Alumni. Most recently, Maher was Designer in residence at Iaspis, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Program for practitioners in Visual and Applied Arts, Design and Architecture as part of the international program, in Stockholm.