Cheryl Dunn is a documentary filmmaker and photographer who was born in New Jersey, USA.
Career and work
Dunn graduated from Rutgers University with a BFA in art history. After moving to New York City in the mid 1980s, she spent a large part of her career documenting city streets and the people who strive to leave their mark there: graffiti writers, artists, skaters, boxers, bikers, protesters, and assorted characters. In the late 1990s she began to focus on filmmaking, creating classic films about artists of her generation who have influenced the realities of urban life through their own work. Her films have played at numerous film festivals including, Tribeca, Edinburgh, Rotterdam, Hotdocs, Los Angeles, Havana, and on PBS. Dunn's work has been exhibited in various galleries and museums including The Tate Modern in London, Deitch Projects in New York, and the "Art in the Streets "exhibition at the Geffen Contemporary MOCA. She was one of the subjects in the documentary, book, and traveling museum exhibition Beautiful Losers. She has had three books of her photographs published: Bicycle Gangs of New York, and Some Kinda Vocation, and Festivals are Good. Her documentary film Everybody Street about photographers who have used New York City streets as a major subject in their work, world-premiered at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto in spring 2013. The film includes photographers Bruce Davidson, Jill Freedman, Joel Meyerowitz, Bruce Gilden, Mary Ellen Mark, Jamel Shabazz, Ricky Powell, Martha Cooper, Elliot Erwitt, Rebecca Lepkoff, Boogie, Clayton Patterson, Jeff Mermelstein with Max Kozloff and Luc Sante.
Peace Consideration Community. Shown at Mirror ball Endinberg International Film Fest & Pre-feature presentations throughout the UK 1999; Warchild Benefit for the Yugoslavian refugee Program, 1999.
Creative Life Store, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; included in package for the book, Some Kind of Vocation
Everybody Street. Shown at Seaport Museum of New York, NY. September 14, 2010 – October 2010; FORMAT International Photography Festival, Derby, United Kingdom, April 2, 2011; Tate Modern London, July 2011; HotDocs, Canadian International Documentary Film Festival, 2013; T-Mobile New Horizons Film Festival, Wroclaw, Poland, July 24 – August 3, 2013; Raindance Film Festival, London, September 25 – October 4, 2013; FOAM Unseen Festival, Amsterdam, September 27, 2013; Atlanta Celebrates Photography, Atlanta, October 2, 2013; Independent Photography Festival, Melbourne, November 4, 2013; Raindance International Film Festival, Berlin, November 20, 2013; Nitehawk Cinema, New York, November 2013; Cinefamily, Los Angeles, December 2 & 7, 2013; Miami Street Photography Festival, Miami, December 6, 2013; Miami Beach Cinematheque, Miami, December 6 & 11–12, 2013; ARTEFIERA at Cineteca Bologna, Bologna, Italy, January 24, 2014; Los Angeles Center of Photography, Los Angeles, January 31, 2014; ICA, London, February 7, 2014; Gene Siskel Theater, Chicago, February 8–13, 2014; FilmBar, Phoenix, February 13, 2014; Rialto Theater, Amsterdam, February 19, 2014; Hollywood Theatre Portland, February 19, 2014; The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK, February 2014; Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, Toronto, February 2014; Salem Film Festival, Salem, March 6–13, 2014; Kentucky Museum of Art & Culture, Louisville, March 13, 2014; EPOS International Art Film Festival, Tel Aviv, March 19–29, 2014; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, March 26, 2014.