September 17, 2020

Tiona Nekkia McClodden Sept 30 in Zoom

Tiona Nekkia McClodden will present a lecture in the Mason Gross Art + Design Visiting Artist Lecture series:

Wednesday, Sept 30 at 7 PM EDT
Tiona Nekkia McClodden
(For Zoom link: check your Rutgers email or submit a request to art.design@mgsa.rutgers.edu)

DID YOU KNOW? Interesting tidbits about Tiona Nekkia McClodden:

1. Tiona said, "This is very different from the work people are maybe looking for from me. But this is work that I needed to do in my life."

2. Once in a daze, the artist handed a JSTOR article to the guides of a holy shrine upon admission.

3. As a kid, Tiona was a nerd and spent much time in the library.

4. The artist considers her first personal decolonization project to be to decolonize European religion, which she refers to as "the tool that was put into me without consent, working its way through my genealogy."

5. 
Tiona's response to recent conversations around restitution and the demand to return Nigerian objects: "I’m humbled, because what I’m confronted with is that these objects were taken, and yet here we have copies—maybe not as precise as the ones in Detroit, but here, nonetheless, and they are very much active."

6. In May 2019, Tiona said that she wants to go to Detroit to tell the objects what she's done, as she feels the objects are only being talked about but no one is talking to them.


Image description: Tiona Nekkia McClodden, I prayed to the wrong god for you, 2019, stills from the six-channel color HD video component of a mixed-media installation additionally comprising twelve objects.
(image and text source: Artforum)