VIVO Media Arts Centre Archive > Meg Torwl Speaking for herself

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What Remains: Meg Torwl

Speaking for herself

An aural introduction to Meg Torwl     

In February 2013, Meg was in Auckland, New Zealand (Aotearoa). She wrote on her blog:

“I had a fabulous week in February staying and working at the Michael King Writers Centre”.  This spacious wonderful old Victorian villa on Takarunga volcanic cone overlooks Devonport and Auckland Harbour. It is fully wheelchair accessible, set in a lovely garden and supported so well by the staff and volunteers. A very peaceful place to work I made a lot of progress with my prose memoir a girl called brian. Thirty stories written in the past 15 years or so.”

While in Aotearoa, Meg was interviewed by Pride New Zealand. She wrote:

“The wonderful Gareth of PideNZ asks a lot of searching questions about what motivates an artist – in light of my recent retrospective Exhibition in Aotearoa/NZ. I end up talking about everything from reading my sisters diary, ‘cross dressing’ as performance art at high school, storytelling as a sacred duty, to how audiences/funders respond to multiply identified work; and a lot more besides! Hmm that Gareth he’s good! Thanks Gareth for being interested in my work ( : Was lovely to see you in person too on a drizzly Sunday morning ( : ”

Meg Torwl Interview

March 3, 2013, Auckland, New Zealand

Includes generated text with time stamps.

A vertical photograph taken at sunset. The foreground is in shadow. It is outdoors in a field or garden. A single white, plastic, lawn chair is in the lower left of the frame, empty, and facing out of the frame. Large trees rise above it framing a bright but white sky and the silhouette of a bridge in the distance.
Sunset from the Michael King Writers Centre, Auckland, New Zealand, February 2013. Photo: Meg Torwl.

Artist Bio

Meg Torwl (1967 – 2013) worked in video, new media, audio, photography, writing, performance and arts advocacy. Her work has been exhibited, broadcast, published and performed in her native New Zealand, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. She produced five new media projects – meditative colour and water photography based installations: Singing Bowls (2004), AQWAI (2006), TIARIKA (2008), Going Coastal (2010), and PORTAL/PORTAGE (2011), and directed three documentaries distributed by Video Out: “Act Your Age”? (2000), where have all the lesbians gone? (2001), and Towards the day…we are all free (2007). Meg also worked in radio, producing 50 half-hour programs with Radio New Zealand National’s One in Five disability community program (2007/8), with a focus on youth, art, multiculturalism and policy.

Meg worked for arts organizations in community outreach and project coordination for the National Film Board of Canada (2004), CBC TV (2006), KickstArt Disability Arts and Culture (2009/10), and BC Regional Integrated Arts Network (2010). Meg was a visual artist, a graduate of The Writers Studio (2011) at SFU, and published numerous books of poetry. She produced her first work with a Video In Mini-Grant.

Social Media

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Blog

Other materials

Meg Torwl fonds finding aid; Meg’s career to 2012 (Power Point created by Meg).