Madre of monsters. Lover of la gran mar; worshiper of tentacles, anemones and jellyfish. If she could, she would sport a shiny, scaly tail.


Aerin loves to make collages & art out of trash . . . to dance, weave and deepen relationships and take long baths. She spends some of her time meditating, writing, gardening and engaging in weird experiments.

She is the Interim General Coordinator for TEN (The Emergence Network),a fugitive, underground network of social artists seeking to create new openings to age-old problems and disrupt dominant modes of perception, engagement, and responsiveness in times of crisis by disturbing modern notions of justice, power, and human agency.


Aerin’s latest collage is inspired by the merfolk process. . . it is called

Desde la Pausa



What do you notice about the collage?


Yo soy…

agua…
yo soy placer…
yo estoy libre…
yo estoy pariendo…
yo soy el búho…
yo soy la tortuga…
yo soy la tierra…
yo soy el puño de polvo de estrellas de lo cual estoy hecha…
yo soy el mar…
yo soy tú.



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I am…

water…
i am pleasure…
i am free…
i am birthing…
i am the owl…
i am the turtle…
i am the earth…
i am the handful of stardust of which i am made…
i am the sea..
i am you.


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Sirena:
Magnetizing, yes
And deadly



Aerin’s free hand drawing is inspired by this artist!


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Union of Eros
and Grief



“Months ago, I dove into the pond, wrapped in a gauzy sarong and my human body was inhabited by the spirit of Mermaid. As I moved through the chilly waters, the thin fabric clinging to my body became an iridescent, scaly tail. A mythical, unearthly element rose up through the murky waters and I felt the elements of this hybrid, non-human being alive in me.While I was connected to the sensuality and vivacity of the moment, I was not bereft of anger, grief and longing either. It is almost as if the bottom half of the mermaid represents the sensual and pleasure-filled element, and the upper half — the human half — represents the frightening, screaming, seductive yet dangerous lure of dark emotion. La Sirena holds these extremes with a strange grace”- excerpt



Aerin M. Dunford is a community steward and Care Team lead for We Will Dance with Mountains, an online festival-course exploring sanctuary-making, postactivism and the other-than-human world. She’s also a process consultant at Coquixa Consultores using El Arte del Liderazgo Participativo (Art of Hosting) and other participatory approaches as a basis for her work with organizations and groups of all kinds. Since the death and stillbirth of her son in 2018, Aerin has been called to work with grief in new ways; she has been reflecting, writing and convening others to metabolize loss together. At the moment, she is in deep explorations of the underworld as a sensual, alive and agential landscape.

La Sirena is her muse this year.


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