Image by Theresa Harrison

Teneille Clerke

Aka Tenfingerz (she/they)

Teneille is a multidisciplinary artist and creative producer. Her work focuses on social change and community engagement through art-making and events. She works across the mediums of performance art, writing, visual art, installation, and broadcasting.

Teneille has a background in fashion where she worked as a photographer and stylist throughout the 2000s. She currently studies creative non-fiction writing in the Professional Writing and Editing course at RMIT.

Teneille’s work has been programmed at Sydney Festival, Art Gallery of NSW, Science Gallery Melbourne, The National Wool Museum, Melbourne Fashion Festival, Melbourne Fashion Week, Shepparton Festival, Melbourne Art Book Fair, Midsumma Festival, National Sustainable Living Festival, Gertrude Street Projection Festival, and Melbourne Fringe.

Teneille’s art practice centers around collaboration. She is in two collectives — Fast Fashun and The Midnight Horrors. She has worked and collaborated with the Centre for Reworlding, MKA Theatre of New Writing, Teatro de los Sentidos (Spain), and Take 3 Presents (USA).

In 2021, Teneille was the City of Yarra’s artist-in-residence for community art and climate action. As part of the residency, she curated and produced The Big Local Arts and Climate Expo. She received a Green Room Award nomination for artistic direction and curation for the project.

In 2021, Fast Fashun also received an acknowledgment from the Green Room Awards for Contemporary and Experimental Performance, and was a finalist in the 2022 Midsumma Australia Post Art Award. Continuing in the fashion of always a bridesmaid never a bride, Teneille’s most recent work 1800ClimateEmergency was nominated for Best Experimental work at the 2023 Melbourne Fringe.

In her spare time, Teneille is a low-key prepper and volunteers with her local State Emergency Service unit.

“Uncanny and entirely mesmerising” - The Report

“Above and Beyond” - The Fashion Advocate

“Above and Beyond” - Buzz Cuts

“Beyond” - State of Green