Sat 27 Feb 2016 In: Our Communities View at Wayback View at NDHA
Fiona Clark: For Fantastic Carmen Artspace Gallery, Karangahape Road, Auckland Until March 5th A few days after the official opening of For Fantastic Carmen I take the opportunity to walk through the photographic exhibition, part of a series at Auckland's Artspace gallery called The Bill, with one of the few people left alive from the days Fiona Clark has documented. Niccole Duval is a survivor and it seems appropriate that the first thing you see as you walk into the gallery is huge photo of Duval herself, taken recently and looking very glam. “Not bad eh?” she chuckles. Then her gaze scans the walls of images of transgender women Clark photographed decades ago. Her smile fades. “They're all dead......every one of them.” Carmen is there of course, but in a far lesser role than the exhibition's title would suggest. Singly or in posed pairs are Sheila, Belinda, Diana, Sharon, Tracy, Jo, Chrissie Tina and more. All looking sultry or ready for their close-up “but not too close!” laughs Duval. Some of the images are flattering and artful, others are coarser and unforgiving. They cover a period from the late 1960s when transgender showgirls and strippers performed at the likes of Mojo's, the Top of the Town and Alfies. One image of the judges of the second Miss NZ Drag Queen contest includes a remarkably youthful David Hartnell. Another reveals the tattyness of the Mojo's venue with its shabby white leatherette and crumbling plywood veneer. There is some nudity including the full frontal of Diana which caused such prudish censure when then-art student Clark included it in her final exam, remembers Duval. And there's a sense of the hard life that these women lived. “User, user user...” Duval points a finger at woman after woman. “They were all injecting,” she says, pausing before an image of a winner of one of the Miss NZ Drag Contests. It was a big night, the band Hello Sailor were performing too, she'd just arrived back from Hong Kong the day before and no-one knew she would enter and actually win the title!” But behind the razzle-dazzle a tragedy was unfolding. “That night someone gave her her first hit,” says Duval, miming a syringe into her arm. “It killed her in the end.” She wasn't the only one to pay the ultimate price for a drug habit. “When any of the girls headed off” to the fleshpots and drug culture Sydney, as many did, “we'd all say 'we won't see her again” and we didn't. Gone... such a shame.” Duvall turns around and comes face to face with the image of a handsome Maori woman with strength in her eyes and demeanour. “Natasha... she was strong and warm and a force to be reckoned with. You didn't want to cross her and yet she was like a mother too all of the other girls." Somehow it seems appropriate that her image is mounted facing the others, still keeping her eye on them. As we take in the faces, personalities and histories Duvall chuckles conspiratorially. "Sheila and a friend used to have a flat in Mt Eden. Soon after they moved in two policemen moved in next door. They all partied, there was sex and drugs and wild times for weeks. Six months later they were arrested.” The policemen too? “Of course not!” she retorts, shaking her head at the hypocritical irony of it. There are several images of Wellingtonian Chrissie Witoko, including one with her boyfriend and his young son. “Chrissie was lovely. She knew how to make her feelings known, sometimes in a very cutting way... I remember her going into a cutlery store and she was getting the evils from one of the shop assistants. She went up to the woman and announced she wanted a full cutlery set, then made her laboriously wrap every single item separately in tissue paper, right down to the last knife and fork. When it was done she leaned in to the woman and said 'I'm not going to buy them but unwrapping them will give you something better to do than passing judgement on your customers.'” The gallery staff are making a fuss of Duval so I take a moment to glance at some smaller black and white photos with hand-written comments attached. The images of '70s drag queens and trans women are revealing in their tackiness. The scribbled comments from back then are sharp, cutting and wounding. Bitchiness personified, but still these men and women remained a group, a clan, tied together by shared experience of a challenging life surrounded by a disapproving, even hateful, society at large. We head away, accompanied by Duval's companion Melissa (“Niccole was the only one who was always, always nice to me in my early years, now I look after her, I'm a bit like her secretary”) and her black poodle. Duval glances back at the exhibition. “They were hard times, it was a struggle... " she says of the days before the Homosexual Law Reform Bill - for which The Bill is named, and ensuing legislation such as the Human Rights Act. "It would have been a lot easier for us these days.” Then her eyes twinkle with mischief. “But it was a lot more fun when it was illegal!” Jay Bennie - 27th February 2016