Maja Escher’s artistic practice has a collective and hybrid dimension. She works with drawings, found objects, collaborative practices and fieldwork methods to develop site-specific installations and research-oriented projects.

Clay, canes, rope, stones, vegetables and other elements found or offered to her during her fieldwork are often combined with riddles, sayings and songs, creating a tension between spirituality and science, magic and technology. Through her works, Escher cultivates and shares a deep observation of ecosystems and ancestral knowledge connected to the land and its primordial elements.

Maja Escher was born and raised near the Santa Clara dam, in southwest Alentejo, a region in Portugal that is densely populated with eucalyptus monocultures. The region has a heavy presence of greenhouses and intensive agriculture, especially in the Southwest Natural Park, which is irrigated by the Santa Clara dam. In recent years, the water level in the dam has dropped drastically, as has the water from the well and borehole on the artist's land. Escher’s awareness of and growing concern with the scarcity of water resources and the subsequent risk of desertification led her to start a research project on water and rain, seeking to connect popular wisdom – stories, sayings and riddles – with scientific knowledge.

The artist’s recent works address the complexity of ecological, economic and social relations in the Mira River Basin in her homeland.