Hi, I'm Maja.

I’m a friend, daughter, partner, writer, and builder of spaces for connection, curiosity and creativity.

I believe friendship “is the greatest of worldly goods,” and I’m drawn to creating and studying spaces that help people flourish together. I love poetry and searching for the miracles in the mundane, whether through writing, gathering, or shared acts of attention.

Over the past few years, I’ve been experimenting with ways to bring people together. I’ve run creative workshops and containers, including a music–poetry workshop where rhythm and language became new ways of listening. I co-run Amateur Hour, a community experiment in urban social infrastructure: afternoons of urban sketching, creative hangs in parks, and gatherings that invite people to play together without pressure. I’ve also hosted a creative retreat for friends, giving them space to explore their creativity more deeply, the first step in what I hope becomes a lifelong practice of designing and holding spaces that help people connect, create, and grow. My dream is to build more of these retreats, workshops, and salons, each a small architecture for human flourishing.

A bit about my background: I started the Instagram art platform @art.ig when I was 13, growing it into a million-strong community. Along the way, I ran growth campaigns for companies including meditation app Calm, and at Blackbird Foundation I helped launch the Protostars program, which funds young creatives to start bold projects.

Now, I write on my Substack, Velvet Noise, where I explore love, perception, desire, and the strange and luminous details of being alive.

What I spend my time on:
– Writing essays that act as invitations to notice and connect
– Gathering people in creative workshops and community experiments
– Reading poetry, wandering cities, and searching for miracles

– Reading with my essay club and writing with my writing club

If any of this resonates, I’d love to hear from you. I'm always looking to befriend intellectually curious, optimistic, compassionate individuals who are ambitious about changing the world for the better. 

[email protected]