“There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.”
— Ansel Adams
At some point on my creative path, meditation became more than a practice — it became part of my artistic process.
It begins with a subtle one-two-three moment of silence, a breath of stillness that draws me inward — toward the essence of things. When I enter that space, the physicality of the world around me begins to dissolve. What once appeared as landscape or surface transforms into structure, rhythm, composition — into art.
These moments are precious. I use them to generate new ideas, to question my place, and to conduct a quiet social study of the ego — its stories, illusions, and hunger. And sometimes, I simply follow a current — as if caught in an electric web that transports me through time, searching for the substance within emptiness.
In these meditative states, I often perceive a vertical timeline. I move along it not by decision, but by instinct — guided by impulse, seeking alignment with my own hierarchy of self. It’s there I find zero balance — the inner axis where I return to origin.
That’s the space I create from.
That’s the space I collect from.
I’ve always been a collector.
At five years old, I discovered that if I had a pocket — I needed to fill it with something. Since then, I’ve been searching for objects that carry meaning, for artefacts of presence, for fragments of experience I can hold close.
In truth, what I collect is connection.
Each object, each artwork, each story I bring into my life — they all speak of someone else’s existence, their vision, their truth. I collect the echo of that presence. I try to enter into relationship with it — with them. That’s what every collection is: a dialogue across time.
And it’s not so different from meditation.
Both are acts of focus, of openness, of being present with what is — and also with what has been forgotten or overlooked. Both are ways of remembering what matters.
I never stop searching — for what resonates, for what holds weight, for what reminds me who I am when everything else falls away.
Art Basel, Miami, 2016
MARIA MIR 