Tanya Jackson

Tanya Jackson is an independent media maker, media educator and program administrator with a passion for cultural programming rooted in social justice. She has invested in the empowerment of youth and under-resourced communities for more than 20 years by leading developmental programs in the nonprofit sector that foster life skills, digital and media literacy, as well as providing media production training. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from SUNY Albany, and a Master's degree in Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. 

After returning home to her native New York in 2012, Tanya served as the Co-Director for Educational Video Center’s flagship program, the Youth Documentary Workshop, curating high school students from across NYC to produce 20-minute social justice documentary films until 2016. She has since worked as a freelance videographer, teaching artist for various nonprofit organizations as well as Youth Program Manager and film reviewer for BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia, PA. 

Formally educated in the Hudson City School District, Tanya has a long understanding of the city’s history; her move back to the area in 2019 presented the opportunity to bring her knowledge and experience home, to serve. Alongside her visionary cousin, Ngonda Badila (aka Lady Moon), and with the advisory wisdom of community elders as well as financial support from the community, Jackson co-organized Hudson’s 1st Annual Juneteenth Celebration in 2020. 

Throughout 2021, Jackson served as production manager and digital video archivist for Diata Diata International Folkloric Theater’s final community play, FIREDANCE! A Selection of 1st Nation Stories. In the absence of her Juneteenth organizing partner, Tanya invited a small and mighty team of family members as well as secured funding support through Spark of Hudson and the Hudson Tourism Board’s Project Hudson, affording her the capacity to organize Hudson’s 2nd Annual Juneteenth Celebration with more activities, including an inaugural preliminary exhibit of Black Hudson history; the success of which prompted Hudson’s youth-centered organization, Kites Nest, to request the exhibit be on display during their community visioning day in September. With a growing passion to cultivate a large-scale, ongoing community produced archive of Black Life in Columbia County and throughout the Hudson Valley, Tanya welcomes the opportunity to use her multidisciplinary skill sets to pilot the Black Columbia County Community Archival Project (BLAccCAP) within the new organizing structure of Lightforms Art Center.