Taslim van Hattum

Taslim van Hattum is a visual artist raised in Northern New Mexico to the sounds of the Turkish saz in a woodshop in the village of Abiquiu. Her work focuses on how contemporary society intersects with religious and sociopolitical identities, representations and women–challenging and exposing the way in which space, personhood, belief and popular culture are connected and imagined by the viewer.  Taslim’s work is at once indigenous to her experience as a Muslim woman, deeply critical of her own cultural and religious frameworks, and irreverent, silly, and crafted with purpose.

Taslim is also committed to her career as a public health social worker who serves as the Chief Program Officer at the Louisiana Public Health Institute. She is a public health leader with over 15 years of experience in local, statewide, regional, and national program strategy, design, implementation, and evaluation focused on advancing innovative approaches leading to sustainable change in the health and equity space.

Taslim has lived in New Orleans for 20 years with her partner who also paints and a daughter they are teaching to paint. In her spare time beyond art and public health she devises elaborate, unfulfilled plans to kill the possum family living in her studio roof.