Megan Tamati-Quennell is a leading art curator, writer and researcher from Aotearoa, New Zealand. She has a 34-year curatorial career specialising in the field of modern and contemporary Māori and Indigenous art. She is the longest serving curator in this field and received a CNZM – a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit – in June 2024, for her contribution to Māori and First nations art. Megan is of Te Ātiawa, Ngati Mutunga, Taranaki, Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe and Ngāi Tahu, Māori descent.
She has held curatorial positions at Te Papa, the national art gallery/museum in Wellington and at the Govett Brewster Art Gallery, in Taranaki. Megan is currently working as an independent curator. She is a PhD candidate in Creative Practice and Design and Fine Arts at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She is also one of five curators for the next Sharjah Biennial (16) to open in Sharjah, 6 February – 15 June 2025. Recent projects include co-curating – Ka Awatea, A New Dawn – the first selected survey show of Senior Māori painter Emily Karaka, with Hoor Al Qasimi, President of the Sharjah Art Foundation for the Sharjah Art Foundation, 7 September – 1 December 2024.
Megan’s research interests include Māori modernism, contemporary Māori art, Māori women artists 1930 to today, international First Nations art, First Nations and non-western art in transnational contexts and First Nations art curatorial praxis.