JONNA MCKONE is a photographer, artist, and filmmaker based in Baltimore, MD. She works with documentary, archives, and abstraction to explore legacies of empire, the fragility of truth, and the land and body as vessels of memory. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums including Candela Gallery (Richmond, MD), Resort Gallery (Baltimore, MD), Zimmerli Art Museum (New Brunswick, NJ), Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD), Hamiltonian (Washington, DC), Zo Gallery (Baltimore, MD), Full Circle Gallery (Baltimore, MD), VisArts (Rockville, MD), and PowerPlant Gallery (Durham, NC). Her work as a visual artist has received support from The Maryland State Arts Council, the Andy Warhol Foundation, Baker Awards for film and video, Rubys Artist Project grant and the Puffin Foundation. She has been a Lewis Hine Fellow at the Center for Documentary Studies, a Flaherty Film Seminar Fellow as well as an artist in residence at Monson Arts’ Abbot-Watts Photography Residency, Platteforum, Full Circle’s Analog Photography Residency, and Skidmore’s Storytellers Institute.
Alongside her studio practice, Jonna is a producer, researcher and story producer making films that both expand the form of documentary and are created with deep reciprocity and research. She produced the sci-fi fiction film, YOUR FINAL MEDITATION (2024), MARGIE SOUDEK’S SALT & PEPPER SHAKERS, which premiered at Sundance in 2023 and is now streaming on the New Yorker. She produced the feature film ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE, which premiered at Sundance in 2021, where it won a Special Jury Award for Nonfiction Experimentation. She is currently producing FENCED, directed by Gabriella Garcia-Pardo, TO USE A MOUNTAIN, directed by Casey Carter, and Untitled Dwarfism Project, directed by Julie Wyman. Her films have been supported by Ford Foundations | Just Films, Sandbox Films, Sundance Institute, Points North Institute, SFFILM, Kenneth/Rainin Foundation, California Humanities, Cinereach, IDA and ITVS.
Jonna has taught and developed graduate, undergraduate, workshops and community-based productions for Skidmore College, Johns Hopkins University, MICA, Radio Rookies, Appalshop, and the Partnership for Appalachian Girls Education. These communities and a dedication to collaboration and the permeability of points of view deeply inform her artistic approach. She is a graduate of Bowdoin College and Duke’s MFA in Experimental & Documentary Arts. Before working in film, Jonna was a radio producer and reporter whose work has appeared on BCC, NPR, the New Yorker Radio Hour, WYPR, and WNYC.
Work via Artspace: https://www.artspace.com/artist/jonna-mckone
For inquiries about commissions, purchasing work, producing and consulting, write to: jonnamckone[@]gmail.com