Tana Hargest
Minneapolis, MN
Tana Hargest is passionate about making art and telling stories that propel society forward. From high-profile museums to community-based artists, Hargest has delivered a wide range of digital, arts, and education programs for creative and learning communities in New York, Boston, and Providence. After years working on the East Coast, Hargest is back in her hometown of Minneapolis, creating art and action through three intersecting ways of working—interdisciplinary art making that focuses on issues of power, race, and class; audience and civic engagement through collective art actions; and work focused on effecting systemic change within the arts ecosystem.
New Negrotopia
Tana Hargest
Artist BioNew Negrotopia is the latest venture by Hargest’s fictitious corporation Bitter Nigger, Inc. Consisting of a promotional video for investors, a website, and actual trade show booths, New Negrotopia is presented as a virtual island resort and amusement park in which the participant becomes a tourist traveling through his or her own racial history and assumptions. New Negrotopia consists of several interactive environments, including: Atlantic Adventure, a 3-D interactive experience of the Middle Passage; the Cotton Bales on the Mississippi water ride; and The Institute of Thinking, a mock-academic think tank located in paradise.