Tara Pixley is a Los Angeles-based visual journalist and filmmaker whose work focuses on re-imagining visual representations of race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality, and other marginalized identities. As a queer, mixed-race, Jamaican-American raised in the Southeast and now living in Southern California, she’s very interested in the intersections of cultures and the ways we imagine place. Tara specializes in dance and portraiture that expresses charismatic movement, specifically using these genres to document the joy and lived experiences of Black and brown communities.
Tara’s documentary short (Porn Star Quotidian) on feminist exotic film star Ela Darling screened at film festivals globally and was awarded First Place at the Thinking Gender media festival. Her most recent film, an experimental dance short exploring the code-switching existence of Black queer women (Codeswitch), is currently touring festivals. Selected clients include New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, ESPN Magazine, HuffPost, Porsche, Nike, Newsweek, CNN, CushmanWakefield, Apple, MilkLife. She is a co-Founder and Board Member of Authority Collective — an organization dedicated to de-colonizing visual media and building community/opportunity for marginalized media makers.
Tara holds a Ph.D. in Communication from UCSD and an MFA in Photography from SCAD. She teaches visual journalism and critical media production at Loyola Marymount University.
Experimental Film & Music Video Festival 