ART21 Magazine: An Interview with Tiona McClodden

Affixing Ceremony

Tiona McClodden. Still image from Movement III: Can invisible men see their own reflections?, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.

Jessica Lynne interviews artist Tiona McClodden for ART21 Magazine about McClodden’s Affixing Ceremony: Four Movements for Essex, a digitally based project commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art.

I was approached by the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), in Philadelphia, about doing a World AIDS Day project, an online commission. I almost turned it down, saying that I don’t do online work…After my original proposal, I had a meeting with the entire staff, which is unheard of, but the feedback was completely positive. They thought my idea was too much, though; they were looking for a single project. I simply told them: I make big work. Because I’m not a designer, the ICA then put me in contact with their design team so that I could be in control of the project’s structure. I created a script and, with the design team’s point person, could then think about tinkering with the site as the project developed.

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McClodden’s digital commission on the legacy of Essex Hemphill can be accessed here. In addition to executing this project, McClodden also served as a juror for ICA’s Open Video Call 2016.