Before AI, Instagram filters, and way before silicone tails became a market, there was Hannah Mermaid — swimming in the deep end of myth, activism, and art.

Hannah Fraser created the vocation of ‘Freelance Mermaid’ in 2003 and has been featured worldwide for her ocean conservation and underwater performance art. Over the last two decades she has created spectacular mermaid tails, performed for film, music videos, photo campaigns, public speaking events & environmental actions. She is often referred to as the ‘Queen of the mermaids’.

At Permaculture Pinup, where our playful ethos is Bees, Trees, and Seas, Hannah embodies the "seas" in the most enchanting way possible. She reminds us that ocean stewardship is inseparable from the health of the whole living system and can be achieved through underwater art-form and on-land action.

This is our deep dive with Hannah to celebrate and showcase her career as the world's first professional freelance mermaid and our attempt at elucidating the potentail of today's Mer Movement.

PermaculturePinup: You’ve been mermaiding for a long time, many years before it was trending. Although we are interested by what called you to first dive in, we want to know how you have seen this particular subculture change over the last two decades. What do you think some important forecasts are or potentials you would like to siren song in?

HANNAH: I’ve been mermaiding for over twenty years, back when there was no blueprint for what that even meant. No Instagram economy, no tail brands, no professional “content creators.” It started as a way to find personal creative expression, to live my dreams of being weightless, free and dancing underwater.

What’s changed most over the last two decades is visibility and speed. The mermaid subculture has exploded, which is both exciting and risky. On one hand, it’s more inclusive, more creative, and more accessible than ever. On the other, it’s increasingly commercialized and disconnected from the ocean itself.

My biggest forecast and concern is this: mermaiding will either become a surface-level aesthetic, or it will mature into a culture with depth, ethics, and responsibility. I’m siren-singing for the second path, and I’m seeing positive progress in that direction! There are a lot of Mers who are doing amazing works bringing attention to the ocean and its inhabitants.

I’d love to see the next generation ask the questions. Where did these myths come from? Who are we speaking for when we wear fins? How do we move from fantasy consumption to relationship with the sea?

The future of this subculture depends on whether it chooses embodiment and stewardship over spectacle alone.

PermaculturePinup: You’re deeply respected within the mermaid community. I’ve seen you consciously use beauty and fantasy to deliver serious messages. My personal decision to jump into this culture was when I realized its intrinsic potential for the artivist archetype. But when you started, did you know mermaids had the potential to be a symbol and superhero for ecological hope?

HANNAH: What began as an exploration of movement and myth soon became a powerful and unexpected way to engage people with environmental issues. The first thing I ever did in a mermaid tail was help create an educational film about caring for wetlands and the rivers that flow into the ocean. Not long after, I showed up wearing that same tail at a protest against wetland destruction, standing on a highway bridge and stopping traffic. People couldn’t look away, and cops didn’t know how to get a mermaid to ‘walk’ away from the protest, and I ended up on the front cover of the local paper in support of the environment. I had already learned the impact of iconic imagery years earlier, dressing as a fairy and standing in front of bulldozers logging old-growth forests in Australia. So I recognized the pattern quickly. When you arrive as a living symbol, people pause. Beauty disarms. Fantasy opens the door. And once someone is emotionally engaged, you can speak about the hard truths they might otherwise avoid.

The mermaid archetype carries a lot of power. It lives at the shores of human and ocean, imagination and reality. That makes it a perfect messenger for ecological hope, but also ecological accountability.

PermaculturePinup: If artivism is not your “legasea”, what is?

If I have a legacy, it’s not mermaids as performance. It’s mermaids as relationship-builders between humans and the ocean. If that sounds like artivism, great. If not, I’m fine with that too.

PermaculturePinup: Have any tips on how you avoid activist burnout especially since you live in a body of water that’s constantly under threat?

HANNAH: Burnout is real. Visiting the ocean in many places around the world means watching it change constantly, often not for the better. I avoid burnout by staying connected to joy, not just outrage. I swim. I create. I let wonder refill me. And I’ve learned that I don’t have to carry everything alone. Community is survival.

PermaculturePinup: Permaculture is sometimes described as systems design for an Earth-harmonious permanent culture — built on three ethics: Earth Care. People Care. Fair Share. When you hear those ethics, in what ways do you think mermaiding contributes to that systems design? As a community builder (holding retreats, etc.), how do you tie these ethics into your offerings?

HANNAH:  Earth Care is part of the package. Mermaiding is about swimming for a purpose - using beauty, femininity, and oceanic presence to stand up for the systems that keep life alive, and taking shared responsibility for their protection.  The ocean isn’t a backdrop.  It’s a living system.  Mermaiding reminds people that the sea is not separate from us.  We belong to it, and can’t survive without it.

People Care shows up in how I hold space. My retreats are about embodiment, skill-building, confidence, and connection. People leave more grounded, more capable, and more aware of their impact.

Fair Share is the hardest and most important. In ocean activism, fair share means not extracting endlessly. It means giving back time, money, visibility, and effort. It means amplifying frontline conservation groups as part of the business plan.

PermaculturePinup: You’ve worked in independent films, art spaces, and recently was part of an incredible projection piece on the pyramidal temple at Burning Man. Please share the influence of these subculture art movements, as you have seen them, as incubators for new culture models.

HANNAH:  Subculture art movements have always been testing grounds for the future.  Independent film, experimental art spaces, and places like Burning Man allow ideas to be tried out before they’re socially acceptable or economically safe.

Spinning upside down from chains fifty feet above a DJ in a mermaid tail, flying as an angel on a zipline high above the desert, and seeing my dances with tiger sharks projected onto a massive pyramid at Burning Man showed me how to think big to impact culture. Not politely. Big, bold & embodied. Those moments crack people open. When someone witnesses fear being faced, feminine power taken to its edge, and the body used as a living symbol, it bypasses the mind and hits the nervous system. Myth and spectacle slip past resistance and rewrite what feels possible. That’s where empowerment lives. That’s where new culture is seeded - in awe, risk, and embodied imagination, not in rules or rhetoric.

These spaces aren’t perfect, but they’re powerful. They let us prototype new ways of relating to each other, to technology, and to the planet. That’s where real cultural shifts start.

At Envision 2026, Hannah Mermaid surfaced once again not just as an icon but as a clear systems thinker during her talk, Journey into the Deep. Her Envision Festival talk was just one of the many appearances during the festival. She is known for leading her pod, the "Salty Sirens", in a sunset hour serpentine dance show on the waters edge, and for taking the stage with the lyra in full tail.

PermaculturePinup: It was such a pleasure to be present for your speech at Envision festival this year. Your talk was beautiful: felt sincerely from the heart, had gorgeous content from years of work, and was so inspiring it brought actual tears to my eyes. I especially loved learning about the manta ray campaign and how it helped sway a critical vote providing them with much needed endangered species protection. Aside from this talk, tell us why you have been participating at Envision festival over the years.

HANNAH: Envision festival feels aligned because it doesn’t separate beauty from responsibility. It understands that people don’t change through lectures - they change through experiences that move them, shake them, and stay in their bodies long after the festival ends. At Envision, I offer moments of beauty I know assist in opening a doorway back to the ocean. Through mermaid aerial acts, surprise sunset beach appearances, and a talk weaving my firsthand encounters with ocean animals, I create experiences that invite people to feel their love for the sea in their bodies. When emotional connection comes first, protection follows.

PermaculturePinup: At the end of your talk you highlighted several nonprofits including two local Costa Rican ones, Wild Sun Rescue Center and Earthrace Conservation. What speaks to you about their work that you would like to share?

HANNAH: I highlighted Wild Sun Rescue Center (a wildlife rescue, rehabilitation, and release center) because they do the unglamorous, daily work of tending broken wings, injured bodies, and displaced lives with real integrity. And Earthrace Conservation because they step into places most people never see, taking direct action to defend the oceans rather than just talking about it.

PermaculturePinup: If we imagined a truly regenerative ocean culture 20 years from now, tell us what it looks like from your eyes, O' Queen of the Ocean.

HANNAH:  A regenerative ocean culture twenty years from now would be one where people see themselves as caretakers, not consumers. Artists, mermaids, and mythmakers help translate hard science into something more artistic that people care about. They make the invisible visible. They remind us that oceans aren’t resources, but the birthplace of all life. The future ocean culture will be built by people who can bridge data and emotion, beauty and responsibility, action and imagination. People who can call in community to real life actions, not just online anger.

PermaculturePinup: Finally, what question do you always wish someone asked you in an interview or what information do you never or rarely get to share -but that is super important to you- because no one asks?

HANNAH: I wish more people asked: “What are you building?” Because that’s what this is about for me. I’m building a culture where beauty and responsibility belong together. Where devotion to the ocean is expressed through art, courage, skill, and joy. Where activism is not rooted only in outrage, but in love strong enough to move people into action.

What matters most to me is alignment. Living in a way that matches what I say I care about. Choosing creativity over apathy. Choosing embodiment over numbness. Choosing love for the living world, again and again.

When we let inspiration move us into action, regeneration stops being an idea and becomes reality. The Earth already holds everything we need for heaven on earth. Our role is to live as devoted guardians of that abundance, participating in its beauty and protecting it with love.

PermaculturePinup: Hannah, you are a true protectress of the waters and servant of the sea. We are so honored to be able to feature you here on Permaculture Pinup as we believe strongly in "the beauty way" as a pathway within activism and also the moving power of artivism. We believe these activist currents will help us continue to forge a regenerative future based in Love. You are such an incredible role model for this work, thank you! What's next?

HANNAH: Thank you! Year-round I offer an array of online Mermaid Masterclass options for those who can only study from afar. For those that want to train in-person, I poured my heart into creating Siren Sanctuary in Costa Rica. Starting in October, I have three retreats. Two in October and the final in November.

Ancient Waters is an immersive ocean and art retreat where women explore underwater movement and mermaid-inspired modeling with Hannah Mermaid, expressive multi-media art experiences with Hope Christofferson, creating dreamlike underwater imagery photographers Julia Lehman and Dakota Fox - all set within the wild beauty of Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast.

Roots & Rhythms is a week-long, heart-opening immersion led by musician and photographer Dakota Fox of (Project Heartshine) and Hannah Mermaid, blending ocean adventures, music, movement, sound healing, and nature-based rituals to reconnect you to joy, vitality, and authentic connection with yourself, others, and the Earth.

Sound of the Siren is a transformative vocal and embodiment experience that combines Meg Kelley’s groundbreaking voice activation training with Hannah Mermaid’s breathwork and underwater movement to help women reclaim their true resonance and express themselves with raw, embodied authenticity.

Train with Hannah in-person or online!

As Hannah says,

Trainings are "a deep container for those who want to move beyond inspiration into lived experience skill-building, and long-term devotion to the sea."

Note: This video shows Hannah’s Siren Sanctuary retreat vibe (showcasing a March 2026 offering)

Find out more about Hannah on her website.

Permaculture Pinup uses sex appeal for regeneration and is a project of Green Wave 501(c)(3) U.S. charitable/ nonprofit organization. Before making a donation to keep our work going, check with your tax consultant to ensure you qualify for tax deduction.

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Interview by JIVANA

Copyright Permaculture Pinup - 2026

Explore another beautiful interview, a podcast of Hannah with Jason Hennessey.