Arielle Tonkin

Posted on July 2, 2020

Arielle Tonkin (they/she) is an artist, Spiritual Director, and scholar of art and Judaics (MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago) based on Ohlone land in so-called Berkeley, CA. Their artwork, rooted in painting, fibers and social practice, centers on ritual and healing. Recent exhibition highlights include: A Fence Around the Torah: Safety and Unsafety in Jewish Life (2021-2022) at the Jewish Museum of Maryland; Queering Jewish Diasporas (2019) at the Omni Commons, Oakland, CA; Orienting Action (2018) at the Rubin Frankel Gallery, Boston, MA; and Orienting Practice (2017) at the Sullivan Galleries, Chicago. As a Teaching Artist, Arielle facilitates classes and workshops at universities, museums, and organizations. As a Spiritual Director, Arielle facilitates life cycle ritual and Jewish and interfaith learning. A lay-hazzan and current SVARA Fellow in the Talmud Teaching Kollel, Arielle also received a yearlong Talmud fellowship from the Hadar Institute in NYC, and was the 2019 Senior Fellow at Atiq: Jewish Maker Institute in Berkeley, CA. Arielle’s arts and culture organizing centers around dismantling systems of oppression; Muslim-Jewish cross-textual arts exchange; and Mizrahi cultural flourishing in the diaspora. Arielle weaves relationships and materializes conversations: the Muslim-Jewish Arts Fellowship, the Arts Jam for Social Change, Tzedek Lab, Mitsui Collective, and Inside Out Wisdom in Action are among their networks of accountability, collective power, and care.