jina valentine is a mother, visual artist, and educator. Her independent practice is informed by traditional craft techniques and interweaves histories latent within found texts, objects, narratives, and spaces. jina’s work involves language translation, mining the contents of material and digital archives, and experimental strategies for humanizing data-visualization. She is also co-founder (with artist Heather Hart) of Black Lunch Table, an oral-history archiving project. Her work has received recognition and support from the Graham Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, and Art Matters among others. 

Much of my practice relates to reconciling the difference between data illustrations and the realities referenced, and intends to foster nuanced and alternative understandings of sociopolitical phenomena.  I hope to inspire compassionate associations with communities and individuals affected by or generative of these phenomena.  My projects employ the use of data aggregation and visualization software; research in physical and digital archives; material experimentation; and collaboration with programmers and humanities researchers. I am hopeful that my ongoing processes of research & material exploration will inspire others’ research in online and offline archives and will lead to discoveries previously unimagined.