Something About Merri….

photo by Guido Harari

Merri Cyr is an artist and curator originally from Adamsville, Rhode Island, who spent twenty five years in Brooklyn working as a fine art and commercial photographer for clients including Disney, Sony, Warner Brothers, and Rolling Stone. From 2009–2019 she served as the in-house photographer for Apple Events in New York City, collaborating on visual content for nearly 800 live programs. She now lives in Westport, Massachusetts, where her curatorial practice has become a central part of her artistic work. Cyr has received grants from the Mass Cultural Council, Fall River Cultural Council, New Bedford Cultural Council, and New England Foundation for the Arts. Her work has been commissioned by Google and exhibited at the New Bedford Art Museum.

To see more of Merri’s work please visit www.merricyr.com

In addition, she is author of two photography books and her photos have been used in a multitude of books and films.

In 2022, four of Merri’s generative digital fine art works on metal, (originally a part of her thesis exhibition at UMass) were commissioned by Google to be displayed in their new building in Cambridge MA.

A member of the Cultural Council from 2020-23 and in response to the Covid pandemic she started the Westport Artist in Residence Program at the Westport Land Conservation Trust so that the public could enjoy viewing artists at work in the beautiful nature of the Westport Land Conservation Trust.

Thanks to grant money from the Helen Ellis Trust and Bank of America, she curated six artist residencies over a period of four years at the Westport Woods on Adamsville Road, in tandem with the Westport Land Conservation Trust.

In addition she has facilitated two Wampanoag events working with members of the Mashpee tribe and local non profits.

In 2022 she co-managed a project which engaged Mashpee members to produce a Native American dwelling: a wetu that was installed at Round the Bend Farm in South Dartmouth MA.

In 2023 Merri facilitated a project with The Trustees, Westport Land Conservation Trust and Westport River Watershed Association (WRWA) and invited members from the Mashpee tribe to burn out a canoe known as a mishoon. The mishoon was presented at the WRWA on River Day, June 24, 2023.

Cyr’s curatorial practice is rooted in community engagement, historical recovery, and the creation of spaces that amplify culturally underrepresented narratives—particularly those of Eastern Native Woodland peoples and other communities frequently marginalized in institutional histories. She approaches curation as a collaborative and relational process, foregrounding lived cultural knowledge, site specificity, and equitable authorship. Her projects often integrate contemporary technology with historical research, as seen in her ongoing collaboration with Chief Two Running Elk to create a monument of an Eastern Native Woodland Indian using high-resolution generative scanning to support culturally accurate self-representation.

Initially the Chief and I worked on some photo studies together to figure out the best pose

Chief Rob chose his clothing from his sacred attire that he designed and worked on with local artisans. How he dressed is what he imagines an Eastern Native Woodland Indian looks like. Rob is the descendant of a historically famous bi racial Wampanog man from Westport Ma. who was named Paul Cuffe. Although I was initially interested in creating a monument to Paul Cuffe, after much discussion Rob and I decided to work together to create this work entitled, “Eastern Native Woodland Indian as Imagined by Chief Two Running Elk”

After the Chief was scanned, the digital version of the scan needed to be stitched up and cleaned in a program called Blender. We decided that we liked the sitting position better than standing, which was a change from the original plan.

We ended up taking the head from a scan of him standing, and placed it on the sitting body. The headdress with fewer feathers was chosen for a more clean look. I needed some special techs to help me clean up the scans and especially the feathers, as the texture is difficult to render in Blende

Here is a 14″ 3d print of Chief Two Running Elk clothed in his sacred handcrafted attire sitting with his tools. We used a 3d scanner to create this image because we wanted it to be an accurate depiction of how the Chief views himself as an Eastern Native Woodland Indian, not my interpretation of him

Once we received the digital print from China, I asked artist and fabricator Vanessa to help me with the finish. She did a great job of replicating bronze. We will study the maquette and figure out if any changes need to be made and I will start working with techs on finishing the modeling using the program Blender. I will make a small version bronze as another study before making the giant one.

Opening at the New Bedford Art Museum. Thank you Suzanne and crew for such a great experience!

Cyr frequently develops site-based and ecologically informed projects, including the Westport Artist in Residency Program and the 17th-century perennial garden and Three Sisters garden at the Handy House. These initiatives merge landscape, cultural memory, and public education, expanding curatorial practice beyond traditional gallery settings.

Her exhibitions also engage global and cross-cultural dialogues, such as the 2023 presentation of Iranian street artist Meysam Azarzad, organized in tandem with Cornell’s Professor Pamela Karimi to bring visibility to the Women, Life, Freedom movement.

Across all projects, Cyr’s curatorial aim is to create platforms that foster cultural continuity, challenge colonial frameworks, and invite audiences into deeper participatory encounters with histories, communities, and place.

Merri believes that creating art in collaboration with fellow creatives in her beautiful home town of Westport will improve the quality of life for all that live in the community. She hopes her work will help stimulate positive growth both spiritually and fiscally.