Tiona Nekkia McClodden is a visual artist, filmmaker, and curator whose work explores elements of gender, race, historical archives, and social change, driven by an interest in, she says, "contemporary renderings of the works of underrepresented figures in Black American history." McClodden's interdisciplinary approach traverses documentary film, experimental video, sculpture, and sound installations. In 2018, she received a Center Project grant to create a new multimedia performance examining black female identity and drawing from the work of poet Langston Hughes and composer Florence B. Price. In 2017, she curated a multidisciplinary exhibition of archival materials and work by contemporary artists as part of the retrospective Julius Eastman: That Which is Fundamental, presented by Bowerbird and supported by a Center grant. McClodden is the recipient of the 2018-19 Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, a Leeway Foundation Transformation Award, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; MoMA PS1, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland; Kansai Queer Film Festival in Osaka and Kyoto, Japan; and the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, among other venues. Her 2008 film black./womyn. received the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Philadelphia Qfest and has been screened at film festivals around the country.
