Megan Brady
Artist Profile:
Practice: Sculpture, installation, textiles, sound
Location: Ōtepoti Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand
Iwi: Kāi Tahu, Ngāi Tūāhuriri, Pākehā
Megan Brady is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans sculpture, installation, textiles, object-making and sound. Based in Ōtepoti Dunedin, she creates sonic and sensory environments that draw attention to how we move through space, and how architecture, materials, and memory shape our experience of place.
Her practice is highly site-responsive. Rather than treating a gallery or building as a neutral container, Megan starts with its overlooked details—doorways, thresholds, floorboards, wiring, repairs—and uses them as clues for how the space is navigated and felt. From these small observations, she builds works that gently re-tune our awareness of where we are and how we’re moving.
Artistic Practice & Themes
At the centre of Megan’s practice is a deep interest in navigation, architecture, and the quiet histories embedded in materials.
Key aspects of her work include:
Architecture and wayfinding
She often works directly with existing buildings, noticing things like scuffed skirting boards, uneven thresholds, or the particular rhythm of a staircase. These details become starting points for sculptural and sound-based works that subtly alter how we enter, cross, or pause in a space.Materials with whakapapa
Megan frequently uses materials that carry their own stories—heart rimu floorboards, hand-worked textiles, glass, stone, pulled-thread linen, and tufted carpet. These materials reference houses, domestic labour, ancestral awa, and the care put into building and maintaining spaces.Whakapapa and whenua
Her work often connects abstract forms back to language and place names. Colours, patterns, and structures echo her Kāi Tahu and Ngāi Tūāhuriri whakapapa, tying sculptural forms to specific rivers, landscapes, and kupu (words) associated with those places.Sonic and sensory attention
Sound is a recurring element. Subtle audio works and resonant materials invite visitors to listen differently to the hum, echo, and rhythm of a site. The result is an expanded awareness of footsteps, breath, air currents, and the architecture itself.
Overall, Megan’s installations ask viewers to slow down, notice what’s usually ignored, and consider how our bodies and histories are woven into the spaces we inhabit.
Selected Exhibitions & Projects
…we all become all of these things – Blue Oyster Art Project Space
In this exhibition, Megan transformed the gallery using floor-to-ceiling elements, including rimu floorboards, textiles, and small sculptural supports. The work explored connections between time, place, and language—how materials from houses and landscapes can be reconfigured into new forms that still carry the echoes of their origins.
The buildings notice me – Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery
This project took the architecture of the gallery as both subject and collaborator. Through sculpture, installation and sound, Megan responded to dimensions, patterns, thresholds, and circulation routes within the building. The title suggests a reversal of the usual relationship: instead of us noticing buildings, the buildings notice us, tracking our footsteps, our pauses, and our habits.
Where light and footsteps fold – CoCA Toi Moroki, Ōtautahi
A two-part mural and installation spanning CoCA’s courtyard exterior and Lux Espresso interior, this project wove together observations of Megan’s ancestral awa in Waitaha with playful design elements about place-making and whakapapa. Accompanied by a small publication, the work used colour and pattern to fold together light, movement, river memory, and the act of passing through public spaces.
A quiet corner where we can talk – Dunedin Public Art Gallery
For this exhibition, Megan hand-crafted an expansive carpet installation that filled the gallery. The work highlighted labour, care, and the comfort of everyday materials, transforming the space into a soft, inviting environment that encouraged visitors to sit, linger, and talk. It foregrounded the social potential of art as a place for conversation and rest.
Other projects and group shows
Megan has contributed to a wide range of exhibitions and projects, including:
Te Hā at The Physics Room, connecting breath, environment, and whakapapa
Paemanu: Tauraka Toi, a major Ngāi Tahu contemporary art exhibition at Dunedin Public Art Gallery
Lay in measures (with Ed Ritchie) at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, focusing on architectural composition and subtle interventions in the gallery’s entry areas
Projects such as Matairaki, At Home, and contributions to Spring Time is Heart-break: Contemporary Art in Aotearoa at Christchurch Art Gallery
Across these works, her focus remains on how we come to know a place—through touch, movement, names, and remembered routes.
Background & Recognition
Megan holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts (First Class Honours) from the Dunedin School of Art. She has undertaken residencies and commissions across Aotearoa, including a residency at Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre in Christchurch, where she developed work for Objectspace’s exhibition How to make a home.
Her work has been shown in galleries and public contexts throughout the country, and she is increasingly recognised for her distinctive combination of sculpture, sound, textiles, and architecture-focused practice.
Ongoing Focus
Across sculpture, installation, textiles and sound, some threads run consistently through Megan Brady’s practice:
Noticing the overlooked: Paying attention to small architectural details and traces of use that most of us walk past without seeing.
Honouring material histories: Choosing materials with deep connections to houses, whenua, and whakapapa, and allowing those histories to shape the work.
Embodied navigation: Making art that you experience with your whole body—through walking, listening, leaning, and resting—rather than only with your eyes.
Connection to whenua and awa: Grounding abstract forms in specific places, rivers, and ancestral connections.
Her work offers viewers a quiet but powerful proposition: that by attending closely to the spaces we move through, we can better understand our relationships to each other, to our histories, and to the whenua that holds us.
Sources and Further reading
Megan Brady – official website, CV and exhibitions/projects: https://meganbrady.co.nz/
CoCA Toi Moroki – Where light and footsteps fold exhibition page and related event listings: https://coca.org.nz/exhibitions/where-light-and-footsteps-fold/ and https://coca.org.nz/events/publication-launch-where-light-and-footsteps-fold/
Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery – The buildings notice me exhibition page, image gallery and event listing: https://www.adamartgallery.nz/exhibitions/archive/2024/the-buildings-notice-me and related pages
Dunedin Public Art Gallery – information on A quiet corner where we can talk (part of FOUR): https://dunedin.art.museum/exhibitions/past/four/
Enjoy Contemporary Art Space – Lay in measures (with Ed Ritchie): https://enjoy.org.nz/lay-in-measures
The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora – artist info / residency profile: https://www.artscentre.org.nz/assets/Megan-Brady-Artist-Info-for-Website.pdf and news item Three take up residence June 2023
Objectspace – How to make a home with… Megan Brady: https://www.objectspace.org.nz/journal/how-to-make-a-home-with-megan-brady/
Toi o Tautahi – “(Artist) Life School: Professional Practice Panel” (bio and recent projects): https://toiotautahi.org.nz/views/artist-life-school-professional-practice-panel/
