ABOUT THE ARTIST
Statement of Purpose
I create ceramic objects and installations that ignite change and investigate transformation in nature and the social world. Through my own experience as a transnational and queer artist, I am distinctly aware that transformation can only happen by embracing and instigating change. Disidentification with belonging to place, culture, and gender is isolating and is best addressed with humor and exploration, as optimism has the power to innovate. I build objects that intervene in the mundane with pop colors and funk aesthetics that challenge norms. I use my own experience with the fallacy that national borders and racialized identity define belonging. This is done by creating art activations that facilitate a social experience of imaginative play and chance interactions. It is also explored by hybridizing multiple contradictory or unrelated ideas to innovate imaginary solutions to real problems.
Artist Biography
Timna Naim holds a BA in Dance from UCLA, is a dual degree master’s student at SJSU for an MFA Spatial Art focused on sculpture, interactive installation, and performance and an MA in Teaching focused on learning through introspection, play, and community. The diverse nature of their bi-racial, multi-ethnic, and transnational identities has given them insight into how cultures and contexts interact to inform identity formation. They are North African and Eastern European, Ashkenazi and Mizrachi Jewish, and Israeli-American in heritage. In their artwork, they support others in exploring their relationship with play and improvisation to define their relationship with themselves and their world through community. They have taught Ceramics at Fremont High School for five years and at SJSU for one year. Timna has been in residence at the Centrum for Keramic and the Ponderosa Dance Center in Germany, TEOR/ÉTICA and UCR in Costa Rica.
Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Heritage by Maria P. Roots
Teaching Philosophy
I believe that working with students is multi-faceted and involves communal-oriented space-holding, listening fully, and understanding how to support varying needs within a singular curriculum. To take an approach that is mindful of the classroom community is about creating a space with the students through facilitated practice, setting expectations with the students, and having each student accountable for their actions and decisions. Listening fully is a vital practice in the teacher-student relationship as it builds trust, ensures a rich understanding, and provides the student with access to ask for non-judgemental support. I want to always make space for the personal experiences of each student to be seen as valuable contributions to the development and learning of the entire class.
I want to encourage challenge and critique if students want to show mastery of a skill in their own way or the scope of their project goes beyond the set parameters I will always help them with strategies for breaking the rule strategically. This positions my work as an educator as first about supporting individual liberatory practice and second as a mentor for different technical processes that artists can take to approach making. The goal is for students to invest in knowing themselves better so they can turn to the practiced technical skills I teach as a vehicle for their self-expressive composition, dialogue, and art-making. Even if my students do not pursue a career in the arts students will be able to play and dedicate time to their creative endeavors that contend with their imagination to improvise and contribute to the collective imagination.