Peter Turner Memorial Lecture: Fiona Clark
Peter Turner Memorial Lecture: Fiona Clark
Te Papa Tongarewa Soundings Theatre
19 August 2022, 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm Register here
Each year the College of Creative Arts brings an internationally significant photographic historian, theorist or artist to Wellington to deliver the annual Peter Turner Memorial Lecture.
The lecture has been established in the memory of the late Peter Turner—photographic historian, curator, author, editor, publisher and teacher. Associated with the memorial lecture is a Masters scholarship in Peter Turner’s name in documentary photography at Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University.
The scholarship and memorial lecture series were launched in 2008 and are supported by a funds appeal. Donations to the fund may be made to the Massey University Foundation.
Massey University’s Whiti o Rehua School of Art, in partnership with Te Papa Tongarewa is delighted to announce the 2022 Peter Turner Memorial Lecture.
Fiona Clark is a practising queer artist – primarily a photographer – living in an ex-milk processing factory building in rural Tikorangi, North Taranaki since 1975. It is home to her work, archives and ‘doings’. The factory sits on a piece of land of 8 acres, with native bush, a garden and a waterway. She has worked to create her own economy to survive and produce her work – which is longitudinal in its nature. In this year’s lecture Fiona will give an overview of her process and working methods and share insights into her community based practice.
Fiona Clark received a Diploma in Fine Arts (Hons) from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, in 1975, focusing on performance and sculpture, though photography became her favoured medium. She has developed her practice from this time, undertaking in-depth, long term photographic projects documenting specific social groups including transgender, gay and lesbian communities, bodybuilders, AIDS /HIV body positive, and local Iwi.
Her work was included in, but subsequently removed from the first survey of contemporary photography, The Active Eye, organised and toured by the Manawatu Art Gallery in 1975-6, a problematic act of censorship in response to public outcry at her photographs’ subject matter. Since then, her works have been included in exhibitions at many public galleries.
Clark lives and works in Tikorangi, where she has created ‘a base’ in the old dairy factory she owns and develops her extensive archives.
More recently the documentary film Unafraid – 2021, examines her work and practise.
Fiona Clark, Carmen Rupe on her 70th Birthday, October 2006. Wellington.
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