Maja likes to sit on the seafront and stare indefinitely, she likes to make paper boats and to paint on rocks on the beach; she loves winter blues in Boka, market days in Cetinje and Turkish coffee in small cute cups on a tray with a lacy grandmother’s milieu. She doesn’t like draft, mud and people who are constantly competing in something. She likes to choose who to portray and does not like to photograph those who ask her to do so. You need to tell her right away what your horoscope is and what your sub-sign is – she wants to know who she is dealing with. For Maja, a photo is a tear in which the ocean can be hidden.
Maja Djuric is a university professor, she was born in Cetinje, lives in Budva, she graduated with a degree in art history in Belgrade, completed her master’s degree in Prague and her doctoral degree back in Belgrade. Her biography alternates the jobs of artistic and commercial photographer, journalist, photo journalist, editor of art programs at international festivals, professors, academic researchers in the fields of cultural heritage of Montenegro, history of photography and theory of culture. Maja Djuric is a typical representative of a new generation of creative industry employees. She’s a multipotentialist one.
In her book ‘How to be everything?’ US entrepreneur and publicist Emilie Wapnick writes that ‘multipotentialists are the Renaissance people of today’, these are the children who never know how to answer the question: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’; these are people with many different interests, creatives who bring a tremendous passion to the business they do and who are not ashamed to say that many things over time simply get boring.
When Maja tells you she’s over 50, she must be joking. It is impossible for one multipotentialist to be older than 35.
Maja defies natural laws by not taking herself too seriously. When asked if she considers herself a successful woman, she says she does not know what the measure is: ‘Some things I have accomplished in my life that I never dreamed of and some that I thought would be a normal part of life did not happen. And so I stopped asking myself such questions. I know I enjoy my job and my life, I know I’ve found myself, which many people never succeed in.’
Maja is a freelance artist. It has neither company nor employees. She contracts the creative industries herself, transports and transfers things from one place to another, controls the printing, measuring and framing process, sets up her own exhibitions and exhibitions of others, does complete design if she needs to edit a magazine or make a presentation of a hotel interior.
Maja is successful because she loves people. She is not ashamed to let go of her fears in front of them and thus inspire them to do the same. Maja loves her students, devotes herself to them, and that’s why the world in her eyes is constantly expanding. She does not like self-centeredness. It cannot understand individuals who do not have the problem that, whenever they need it, they ‘compensate for the lack of knowledge with excess confidence’.
She tries never to do what she doesn’t need and only gives her hope that she may one day do what she needs to do. She wrote long time ago that her motto was: ‘Life is like a camera. Focus on what’s important. Capture the beautiful moments. If it doesn’t turn out right, take another shot.’
You can never make a good enough shot when you try to capture Maja’s thoughts and her spirit. So, surely, we will have to try again soon…
All additional information about Maja Djuric can be found at www.majadjuric.com.
