Through photography and text, she explores how human experiences can be given a form that invites recognition, reflection and new ways of seeing. Images and language approach the same questions from different directions, allowing room for what remains contradictory or difficult to articulate.

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Her photographic practice began with a documentary project during the final years of her mother’s life. Photography became a shared process of meaning-making and also renewed a connection with the work of her maternal grandfather, press photographer Harry Lindwall. This experience led to an ongoing exploration of care, grief and the significance of relationships over time.

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Artistic practice

Maria often begins with personal experiences and people’s everyday actions. An extensive period of research and reflection follows, centred primarily on reading – psychological research, literature and other texts. Somewhat later in the process, she also seeks out other photographers’ interpretations of the subject. This intellectual and emotional process often unfolds over several years. Gradually, a distinct idea and a possible visual language take shape in her imagination. Only then does she begin to explore the theme photographically. 

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Projects

Her photobook En ovikt samling (Swed. An Unfolded Collection) includes the series Circles of Care, from which five photographs were selected for Hasselblad Fotosalong 2025. Taking the act of making a bed for someone else as its starting point, the series draws attention to everyday expressions of care. A seemingly simple gesture holds both a relationship and an understanding of another person’s needs.

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In her ongoing project within without she explores grief following the loss of a loved one. Light and darkness, space and repetition become ways of approaching how time is experienced in grief. How does an irrevocable absence change the world we inhabit? What endures in our sense of self when life has changed? The work develops through photographs and text, with the book form and the presence of photographs in an exhibition space offering different possibilities for giving form to the experience.

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A psychological perspective in artistic practice

Maria is a licensed psychologist and holds a PhD in psychology, with more than thirty years of experience in psychology, research and teaching. This background informs her attention to emotions, relationships and how people create meaning. In her artistic work, these questions develop through the expressive possibilities of photography and language, and through discoveries made during the creative process itself. Her practice is also grounded in psychological research on aesthetic experience, creativity and emotion.

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Artistic learning

Alongside her own artistic practice, she leads seminars and discussions of photographs for photographers through Atelier Chroma. These focus on the creative process, participants’ own image-making and the relationship between image and language.