About
On the opening day of Economies of Deferral join us to hear artists Fiona Clark and John Miller (Ngāpuhi, Ngāi Tāwake ki te tuawhenua, Te Uri Taniwha, Ngāti Rēhia, Te Whiu) discuss their work.
Clark’s installation includes archival and newly developed work documenting the social and ecological change wrought by the extractive industries which surround her home in Tikorangi, as well as her continued efforts to hold powerful actors to account. Her body of work serves as a social history of Taranaki as witnessed through the artist’s eyes—enfolding farming traditions, an obsession with cars, and a prevailing masculinity which infuses the region’s culture.
John Miller’s work in Economies of Deferral documents a journey taken in 1986 around Te Tairāwhiti (the East Coast) with his friend Darcy Lange while filming Lange’s work Lack of hope: Co-op a new future. Miller’s photographs document an economy being remade at rapid pace, as well as scenes of resistance and community organisation in response to change.
Fiona Clark:
Fiona Clark (b. 1954) is one of Aotearoa’s most celebrated photographers. Born in Inglewood, Clark graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 1975, working initially in performance, before moving towards photography.
Her images offer insight into the social histories and traditions of political advocacy that shape contemporary Taranaki, and Aotearoa. Her work has developed over more than five decades, and has consistently been undertaken with an ethic of duty and care towards the individuals she collaborates with, and provides an important record of movements and communities she has been actively involved in: including the LGBTQI+ community in 1970s Tāmaki Makaurau, the efforts of Te Ātiawa to restore mahinga kai off the Waitara coast; professional body builders, and individuals living with HIV.
Clark has exhibited widely throughout Aotearoa, Australia and internationally, and her work is held in many institutional collections including: the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery; Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa; Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki; and The Dowse Art Museum, Te Awakairangi Lower Hutt. A feature-length documentary, Fiona Clark: Unafraid was released in 2021 and in 2023 Clark was made an Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate. Clark’s work is included in the 18th Biennale de Lyon, curated by Catherine Nichols, opening in September 2026.
John Miller:
John Miller (b. 1950, Ngāi Tawake ki te Tuawhenua, Te Uri Taniwha, Ngāti Rēhia and Te Whiu, Ngāpuhi) is a photographer whose work has chronicled the social, political and cultural life of Aotearoa for nearly six decades. Since the late 1960s, he has documented labour struggles, anti-war and anti-apartheid movements, Māori political organising, environmental campaigns and movements for social justice. Working from within communities and political movements rather than at a distance, Miller's photographs bear witness to the lived consequences of power, dispossession, resistance and collective action. His work forms an enduring record of the people and events that have shaped contemporary Aotearoa.
Images:
Left: John Miller, John Miller and Darcy Lange with Lange’s Citroën Deux Chevaux, Pungarehu, 1985. Courtesy of the artist. Right: Fiona Clark, Tikorangi, March 2024. Courtesy of the artist.