Image: Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland
Gus Fisher Gallery has named Conor Clarke and Sione Faletau as selectors for ‘The Changing Room 2027’. Submissions for the programme close at 11.59pm on Thursday 1 October 2026, with support for the 2027 edition provided by The Chartwell Trust.
Clarke, who is Ngāi Tahu, Irish and Welsh, is an artist, conservationist and Lecturer in Photography at Ilam School of Fine Arts in Ōtautahi Christchurch. Her lens-based practice explores the living world, ecology and landscape, concentrating in particular on that which is barely perceptible or overlooked.
Her recent exhibition history includes ‘Birdland Te Kāhui Manu’ at Christchurch Art Gallery, as well as ‘Rongo’ at Two Rooms and ‘Site Seeing’ at Wellington City Gallery, both in 2025. In 2024, she appeared in ‘Paemanu: Awa Toi’ at Queensland Art Gallery as part of the Asia Pacific Triennial, and presented ‘A fire that blackened the rocks’ at Te Atamira in Queenstown.
Faletau, an interdisciplinary artist of Tongan descent from the villages of Taunga, Vava‘u, and Lakepa, Tongatapu, is based in Ōtara, South Auckland. His work encompasses soundscape design, projection mapping, performance, video, drawing, sculpture and installation. It is rooted in the Tongan concepts of fonua—land, grave, people and womb—and ongo, meaning sound and feeling, and explores cultural and environmental relationships through contemporary and traditional lenses.
Sound also informs Faletau’s visual production: he often manipulates audio wave spectrums to translate soundscapes into intricate kupesi patterns. He holds a Doctor of Fine Arts from Waipapa Taumata Rau The University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts, where his doctoral research addressed Tongan masculinity from an Indigenous perspective using the Talanoa methodology.
From September 2026, Clarke will be artist in residence at Parehuia McCahon House.
