Throughout her early career, beginning when she worked the late shift at a central city bar, Fiona Clark made photographs of the drag scene in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her images are vivid and forthright and form a significant record of the people and places that were involved in sustaining queer and trans subculture at a time when this kind of self-expression could still lead to arrest in Aotearoa. Diana and Sheila and Diana and Perry have a deeply human quality to them – a vulnerability that Fiona always wanted her photographs to communicate – but also revel in the glamour and ingenuity of dressing up, going out. For Fiona, “[t]hese photos say, ‘I am who I am. I’m here. I’m part of your world and I’m going to stay.’”

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- 21 July 2024)