In 1968 June Clark moved from her home of New York City’s Harlem neighborhood to Toronto. In Canada, Clark taught herself photography. Gender-restrictive regulations at the University of Toronto, where she worked as an administrator, barred her from darkroom access. She cofounded the Women’s Photography Cooperative to empower, discuss, and exhibit the work of local women practitioners; the group met regularly at Baldwin Street Gallery, Canada’s first independent photography gallery.

Through her early street photography in the 1970s, Clark navigated her new home of Toronto with special attention to the Black communities she encountered there. Clark later adopted a more mixed-media practice that examines themes of Black diaspora, American identity and symbols, and a merger of personal memories and family identity.