ART / PHOTO / VOICE / MOTION / dramaturg

I work with Nature as a dramaturg to create worlds full of beautiful, hybrid, abject monstrosities that seduce, beguile and disturb. I am fascinated by myths that demonise 'different'. I work in distorted realities, photographing under-represented native forests and swamps using a cubist lens. These images become multi-perspective photographic compositions which are combined with sound, voice and resonance motion design to create immersive, embodied, experiences where audiences can share space and time with diverse worldviews. These audio visual artworks challenge colonial screen myths which cast the Australian landscape - Nature - as villain and horrific crimescene to be 'cleansed' and 'domesticated'. My cinematic cubist artworks reverse colonial narratives through lived-experience, multi-sensory, Decolonising experiments, which suspend disbelief, create connection, incite Awe, inspire change and empower Nature.

 

'Through' collaborating with Nature, I listen, I sing, I feel, I dance, I journey, I experience a process of discovery through practice. I create Art, space, time, invitations, experiments, pathways, exhibitions, transmissions and opportunities - including collaborations with local Queer+Ally communities to play, to learn, to listen, and develop the ‘Tune:in’ journey. These projects challenge colonial norms that control and silence marginalised or Abject Voices. Projects include the Hobart VoiceLab: Queer+Ally (2022-ongoing), 'The Yearning' (2023) the QueerTas StoryLab (2024) and CUSP (2025).

 

My creative and cultural practice is inspired by Barbara Creed (The Monstrous-Feminine, 1993) et al, and interrogates how Abjection on screens defines social norms. This body of work is the evolution of my doctorate research into creating physical, lived Abject story spaces or 'lived cinematic image' as ‘lived space,’ through immersive, embodied, multi-sensory, more-than-human visual Art installations within Art galleries. These Abject Places are the safe containers for these Decolonising Art Rituals. In these Places binaries co-exist, causing 'meaning to collapse' (Kristeva). In these Abject Places norms are examined and re-imagined to embrace bio-diversity as a political act of defiance and solidarity

 

Below is a pdf of my current Art cv. My linked in page has a detailed work history.

 

Born on the Victorian wheatbelt during apartheid Australia on the lands of the  Wotjobaluk people, I have travelled, lived and worked all over the world. I am a human being - multi-dimensional and intersectional - NonBinary, NeuroDivergent, Pasifika, Lesbian, Queer -  it is through this multi-perspective lens that I experience the world which I share through my artworks. 

 

I live, love and toil on the lands of the Palawa people in nipaluna, lutruwita (Hobart, Tasmania) and pay my respects to these Everywhen Elders and Warriors of the Now who allow me to share Their Country. I am also deeply grateful to the Quandamooka, Yuggera, Turrbal, Yugarabul, Jagera and Yugambeh Elders in South East Queensland for their generous gifts during my journey.

 

Et al: Ross Gibson (Figuring Landscapes, 2008), Mykaela Saunders (Everywhen, 2022), Julia Kristeva (Powers of Horror, 1980), Juhani Pallasmaa, (The Lived Image, 2006), Maureen Murdock (The Heroine's Journey, 1990), Monica Gagliano (Thus Spoke the Plant, 2018) and Hinemoa Elder (Ara, 2025)

Download
Merri's current CV
MerriRandell-cv-2026-1pg.pdf
Adobe Acrobat Document 72.2 KB
 Photographer: Katie Bennett
Photographer: Katie Bennett