1. Titles are important. Well, they are to me. This one is an optimistic title, because it assumes I’ve learned something—anything at all—and at art school of all places, where I am quite sure I went to learn nothing—and got close—when I think back to art school and what it […]
Megan Dunn
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The Mermaid Chronicles: A Midlife Mer-moir is my latest book published by Penguin Random House New Zealand on August 13, 2024. Listen to my feature interview with Kathryn Ryan on RNZ Nine to Noon. The Mermaid Chronicles is about my mid-life calling to meet the real mermaids. It’s been a […]
A couple of years ago a girlfriend said to me over a Pint, “You know what I’d like you to write about next?” “No.” I sipped my beer, wiped the froth from my lips. “God,” she announced. God is a painting by Julian Hooper that I recently fell in love […]
I woke up the other morning, started scrolling my phone, and landed on an image of a gigantic Blue Ted roaming the flaxen countryside. Blue Ted had an enormous head and a rotund belly, but from his bright blue furry arms protruded human hands and from his blue furry legs […]
Please enjoy Julian Sharp’s short and informative interview with me for TVNZ’s Seven Sharp, in my exhibition The Mermaid Chronicles at Adam Art Gallery Te Pataka Toi. This segment features wonderful footage of the show, including stellar performances by some of the world’s leading professional mermaids: Hannah Mermaid, MeduSirena, Julie […]
For my exhibition The Mermaid Chronicles at the Adam Art Gallery, we ran a series of film screenings: Splash (1984), Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) and I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987). Before each screening, I interviewed a relevant speaker about mermaids in culture. Below are my edited Zoom interviews with […]
What’s art got to do with it? is the loose title —thanks Tina Turner—that I cribbed for my occasional art segment on RNZ’s Saturday morning show with Kim Hill. I discuss the intersection of art and life, hoping to look at art beyond gallery walls when possible. Worshipping art: on […]
Megan Dunn: The Mermaid Chronicles with works by Andrew Brusso, Olivia Erlanger, Julia Holden, Alexis Hunter, Suzanne Husky, Brett Stanley, Lena Maria Thüring, and featuring Annette Kellerman, MeduSirena, Hannah Mermaid, Merman Jax, and Julie Atlas Muz 21 October – 18 December 2022, Adam Art Gallery, Wellington. The Mermaid Chronicles explores writer Megan […]
This is the talk I gave for Speakers Corner: Art for Art’s Sake at the Auckland Writers Festival in 2022. Today I am going to tell you about: a picklea piece of paperand a hinge. But first I am going to tell you about nothing. I once gave an old […]
The pencil was on loan from Waitakere College. It wasn’t until I was tapping the model’s redhead with it—as though she was an egg I might crack—that I felt things were working. The pencil became the irritant. As writing is often an irritant for me. Each point bearing down on […]
Ahoy, reader! On November 9th 2017, a small, obscure red paperback called Tinderbox was published. It was about a woman who tried to rewrite Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 from the perspective of the female characters and failed. It was also about a woman who worked as a bookseller for doomed chain bookstore Borders (RIP) […]
Things I Learned at Art School was released on August 24th, 2021, in lockdown. I’ve only recently managed to have a flurry of in-person events, including a reading at Unity Books Wellington on Thursday November 18th. I asked Harry Ricketts to intro me for good reasons revealed below. His speech, […]