Drawing on her background in theater design and direction, Maya Watanabe is known for her multi-channel video installations that explore the relationship between language, collectivity, identity, and space. Considering words, silences and the interweaving of the two, her videos are often slow, controlled, and cyclical in nature. Earlier works incorporate references and methodologies from cinematographic language, often involving one or several actors performing a script and interacting with the camera through choreographed movements. The texts narrated by the actors are either borrowed quotes from movies or modified poems and scripts, which become untethered when taken out of their original context. The ambiguity and lack of narrative that results reveals the imprecise nature of perception and the images and memories that we rely to construct identity. Recent works examine the landscape, exploring their tendency towards the fantastical and ability to conjure memories. With particular attention to the legacy and history of Peru, her work considers the fragmented, uprooted, and mutable past of a place, and how issues of historical instability can take centuries to resolve.