Artist Info/Practice

Tia Santana is an artist and researcher whose practice explores ancestral memory, reclamation, and embodied resistance through the decorative arts, with a particular focus on ceramics. Her work reimagines historical narratives of omission within the Black diaspora, honoring the overlooked labor and artistry of unnamed Black craftspeople whose contributions have long been obscured.

Focused on the material and cultural legacies of the Antebellum South, Santana’s research bridges studio practice and archival study. Her work encompasses field research along the Underground Railroad in the Northern states and at former pottery plantations throughout the South, including Edgefield’s Pottersville.

Santana received a 2025 RSCA Award for Southern Road Trip and a 2026 Exhibition and Research Award supporting her continued investigation into Black erasure, labor, and the histories of craft and decorative arts. She has also received artist and research fellowship grants from institutions including UCLA and CSULB.

Her interdisciplinary practice spans vessel-making, performance, spoken word, and photography, creating a dialogue between past and present that reclaims visibility, authorship, and creative agency within historically marginalized spaces. Santana’s work has been juried and exhibited at Wasserman Gallery in Detroit, and she presented at the 2026 NCECA Conference. Her work has also been featured in a solo exhibition at Philadelphia International Airport.