ASHLEY HUNT

BIOGRAPHY Ashley Hunt is an artist and activist who uses video, photography, mapping and writing to engage social movements, modes of learning and public discourse. Among his interests are structures that allow people to accumulate power and those which keep others from getting power, while learning from the ways people come to know, respond to and conceive of themselves within these structures. Rather than seeing art and activism as two exclusive spheres of practice, he approaches them as complimentary, drawing upon the ideas of social movements and cultural theory alike — the theorizing and practices of each informing the other. This has included investigations into the prison, the demise of welfare state institutions, war and disaster capitalism, documentary representations and political activism. His recent performance,
Notes on the Emptying of a City, explores the first-person politics of being in New Orleans with
a camera in the months following Hurricane Katrina, when he engaged with community activists
to research the city’s refusal to evacuate the Orleans Parish Prison. Other projects include a number of works included under the umbrella of The Corrections
Documentary Project (www.correctionsproject.com), which centers around the contemporary
growth of prisons and their centrality to today’s economic restructuring and the politics of race;
9 Scripts from a Nation at War, a collaboration with Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Katya Sander
and David Thorne, and an ongoing collaboration wtih Taisha Paggett, On Movement, Thought and Politics. Hunt’s work has been screened and exhibited at the P.S.1/MOMA, Project Row Houses, Documenta 12,
the Gallery at REDCAT, Nottingham Contemporary, the 3rd Bucharest Bienial, the Tate Modern,
the Museum of Modern Art, the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center
in Atlanta, as well as numerous grassroots and community based venues throughout the U.S.
Writings and publication include, Printed Project 12 (’09), the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest (‘08, ‘07
& ‘05), On Knowledge Production: A Critical Reader (BAK '08), Art Journal (‘07), Chto Delat (‘07),
Rethinking Marxism (‘06), and at Artwurl.org (‘03–‘05), and Sandbox Magazine (‘02) . CV

FELLOWSHIPS / RESIDENCIES / AWARDS

2012 Hyde Park Art Center Residency, Chicago, IL 2010–11 Visual Artists Network Exhibition Residency, through the National Performance Network and Project Row Houses 2009 Durfee Artist Resource Completion Grant, with Taisha Paggett
2007 BAK Center for Contemporary Arts, Research-In-Residence, Utrecht, NL 2007 New York Foundation for the Arts, Swing Space Fellowship 2006–07 Fellow of the Vera List Center for Art & Politics 2002 Ford Foundation, Social Justice Grant for Independent Media Production 2001 Public Welfare Foundation, Independent Media Distribution Grant 1999 John Quincy Adams Fellowship, Art Institute of Chicago 1997 John Dales Fund Scholarship, Screen Actors Guild of America EDUCATION 2000 Whitney Independent Study Program, Whitney Museum of American Art 1998 Masters of Fine Art, School of the Art Institute of Chicago 1994 Bachelors of Fine Art, University of California at Irvine EXHIBITIONS/SCREENINGS/PERFORMANCES

2012
Made in L.A. 2012: Los Angeles Biennial, Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA 9 Scripts from a Nation at War, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Arika Performance Festival, Glasgow, Scotland
The Hairy Blob of History, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL
2011 The Global Contemporary, ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany
Communograph, Project Row Houses’ Fall Round, #35, Houston, TX Performa Biennial of Performance, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY To Disobey at All Costs: Video and Demonstrations, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, Curated by Miguel A. Lopez
Notes on the Emptying of a City (Performance)
The New Museum, New York proQM, Berlin, Germany
threewalls Gallery, Chicago Public Space One, Iowa City Black Film Archive, Indiana University
2010 Notes on the Emptying of a City (Performance) Beta Local and the College for Architecture, San Juan, PR Woodbourne State Prison, Bard Prison Initiative, Woodbourne, NY Hessel Museum/Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, Annondale-on-the-Hudson Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe Rubin Museum of Art, El Paso Co-Lab New Media Space and Community Garden, Austin Project Row Houses/Eldorado Ballroom, Houston Greater New York, P.S.1/MOMA
A History of Irritated Material, Raven Row Gallery, London Another Country, curated by Ovul Durmusoglu, IFA Gallery Stuttgart Medium Resistance—Revolutionary Tendencies in Print and Craft, The Ice Box, Philadelphia,
curated by Philip Glanh, Richard Hricko and Nick Kripal
Ohio State Human Rights Conference (performance)
Instruments of Risk, curated by Carol McDowell and Asher Hartman, Sea and Space Explorations, Los Angeles 2009
mama-san, curated by Young Chung, Glendale College Art Gallery, Los Angeles Post-American L.A., curated by Pilar Tompkins, 18th Street Art Center, Los Angeles Disobedience, curated by Marco Scotini, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest Performing Economies, curated by Elana Mann, Fellow for Contemporary Art Space, Los Angeles Democratic Acts, curated by Luigi Coppola & Marko Stamenkovic, at the 1st Biennale Democrazia, Cavallerizza Reale, Torino at Festival Fabbrica Europa, Stazione Leopolda E Casa Della Creatività, Florence Konsthall C, Being There, Stockholm, curated by Jan-Erik Lundström, Stokholm Rotte Metropolitane, Tools for Revolution or Just for Sale, curated by Giacomo Bazzani, Florence An Atlas of Radical Cartography, Curated by Alexis Bhagat & Lize Mogel, at Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht at Basekamp, Philadelphia, An Atlas of Radical Cartography, Curated by Alexis Bhagat & Lize Mogel 2008 The Gallery at REDCAT, Los Angeles “The Impossible Prison,” Nottingham Contemporary, UK “Ours: Democracy in the Age of Branding,” Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons The New School for Design Tate Modern, L2 Gallery The 3rd Bucharest Biennial, Romania New Museum, Screening Series, “Unmasked: A Marathon of Artists' Videos and Films Contesting Systems of Rule,” Organized by Elise Youn and Carlos Motta “War Stories,” Sandra & David Bakalar Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, curated by Lisa Tung 2007 Documenta 12, Kassel, Germany
An Atlas of Radical Cartography, curated by Lize Mogel and Alexis Bhagat
MoMA, Documentary Fortnight, New York
Left Forum, New York, Screening program by Jesal Kapadia and Susan Johada
Princeton Human Rights Film Festival, Princeton, New Jersey
3rd Annual Prisoners' Justice Film Festival, University of Toronto 2006 “Headquarters,” Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, curated by Cira Pascual “Not Sheep: New Urban Enclosures and Commons,” organized by Urban Subjects (US): Sabine Bitter,
Jeff Derksen, Helmut Weber New Orleans Human Rights Film Festival “When the Artist Says We,” Artist’s Space, New York, NY “Capital: It Fails Us Now,” Tallinn, Estonia, curated by Simon Sheikh Free Speech TV, Public Broadcast “Prison Nation,” Center for the Study of Political Graphics, Watts Towers Art Center 2005 “I Beg Your Pardon, or, the Reestablishing of Cordial Relations,” Vera List Center for Art & Politics,
New York, curated by Andrea Geyer “Capital: It Fails Us Now,” UKS, Oslo, Norway, curated by Simon Sheikh ”Drawn to Drawing,” Betty Rymer Gallery, Chicago, IL ”Patriot,” The Contemporary Musuem, Baltimore, MD, curated by Cira Pascual “Defense,” Sweeney Art Gallery, Riverside, CA, curaedr by Lauren Hartman Amnesty International Firefly Film Festival, Brooklyn, NY Toronto Prisoners’ Justice Film Festival, Social Justice School, University of Toronto 2004 “Identify! Studies in the Political Subject,” Vera List Center for Art & Politics, New York, curated by Andrea Geyer Hallmark Channel, National Cable Television Broadcast Group Exhibition, Paxico Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Appendiks 9, Appendiks Art Space, Copenhagen Atlanta Independent Media Center, Little 5 Points Community Center, Atlanta, GA Hopedance Film Festival, San Luis Obispo, CA 2003 “Territories,” Kust-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, curated by Anselm Franke Critical Resistance Southern Regional Conference, New Orleans, LA Community Screening, The Refuge Community Center, St. Petersburg, FL Simon's Rock College of Bard, Boston, MA Middlesex College, Lowell, MA Our Island, Our World Film Festival, Ganges, British Colombia 2002 Clifton Chenier Community Center, Lafayette, LA Social Sectors, Kunstalle Exnergasse, Vienna Impakt Festival, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Oberhausen Film and Video Festival, Oberhausen, Germany Palestinian International Video Festival: Khalil Sakakini Cultural Ctr, Ramallah, Al-Quds Educational Television Broadcast, Ramallah, Palestine New York Underground Film & Video Festival, New York, Anthology Film Archives “Right 2 Fight,” New York, NY, curated by Dominique Malaquais & Trebor Schulz Moviate Screening Series, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA Communities Against Rape & Abuse, Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Ctr, Seattle, WA Critical Resistance Screening Series, Arise for Social Justice, Springfield, MA Athens Film & Video Festival, Athens, Ohio Critical Resistance Film Festival, New York, NY Hollywood Underground Film & Video Festival, Los Angeles, CA Zeitgeist Theatre, New Orleans, LA Learning Community, Prison Project, Penn State University Colloquy, Harrisburg, PA In & Out of Control, Holden Gallery, Manchester, England, curated by Tanya Leighton Ocularis Film Series, Brooklyn, NY Nevada Prison Reform Organizing Conference, Los Vegas, NV 2001 Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Visions Cinematheque, Washington, DC ARC Gallery Media Room, Chicago, IL Smart Project Space, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex Film Fest, San Francisco Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, Birmingham, Alabama Bronx Museum, Nomads & Residents CD Archive, Bronx, NY Ground Zero, Nomads & Residents CD Archive, New York, NY Slamdance International Film & Video Festival, Park City, Utah Atlanta Film & Video Festival, Atlanta, GA DUTV Broadcast, Philadelphia, PA Lindesmith Center Drug Policy Reform Conference, Albuquerque, NM Department of Space & Land Reclamation, Butcher Shop, Chicago, IL Black Panther International Film Festival, New York, NY Martin Luther King Jr. Center “Dream Series”, Atlanta, GA Open Society Institute, New York, NY Werelwijd Mediahais, Brussels, Belgium Network Broadcast, American Broadcasting Corporation, Bakersfield, CA Nat Taylor Cinema, York University, Ontario, Canada Critical Resistance Northeast Conference, Opening Plenary, New York, NY 2000 “Other Voices,” Chicago Access Network Broadcast, Chicago, IL “Transparent Architecture,” Gale Gates et al. Gallery, Brooklyn, curated by Anne Ellegood Whitney Museum of American Art ISP, Open Studios, New York, NY Art Expo 2000, Hanover, Germany 1999 Bandits-Images Film and Video Festival, Bourges, France Solo Exhibition, ARC Gallery Media Room, Chicago, IL 1998 Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL New Artists in Chicago, Terra Museum of Art, Chicago, IL MFA Film & Video Screening, Film Center, School of the Art Institute of Chicago At the End of the Day: Twenty Artists’ Views of South Africa, Gallery X, Chicago Center for Communications Resources, Chicago, IL 1997 Video Annual 1997, Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies Bandits-Images Film and Video Festival, Bourges, France CURATORIAL 2005 Undeliverable Address: 54 Questions that will not be answered by the White House, Crazy Space, Los Angeles 2000 Video Purgatory, Bona Fide Gallery, Chicago, IL 1999 Multi-Media Block Party, Street Level Youth Media, Chicago, IL 1998 At the End of the Day: Twenty Artists' Views of South Africa, Gallery X, Chicago, IL 1997 Living with Television, Gallery 2, Chicago,
PUBLICATION Broken English, ed. Carlos Motta and Julieta Aranda, Essay: "Dear Artists: Open Letter on the Occupy Movement," 2011 Bad at Sports Contemporary Art Talk (Blog), "Social Practice Art's Identity Crisis: Interview with Ashley Hunt by Abigail Satinsky," 2011 itch #12: Com(petition) The Big Throw Down, Essay: "Theater of Scarcity," 2011 The Second World Congress of Free Artists, Aarhus, Performance Script: “Dictatorship of the Audience,” 2010 Printed Project, #!4 “Circulation”, edited/curated by Katya Sander, 2009
Experimental Geography, edited by Nato Thompson, Creative Time, 2008
Concerning Knowledge Production, Critical Reader published by Basis voor Actuelle Kunst, 2008 (Essay) Journal of Aesthetics and Protest #6, 2008, Interview by Robbie Herbst Prospectus, website for Prospect 1 New Orleans Biennial, 2008, Interview by Alex Villar Concerning Knowledge Production, Critical Reader published by Basis voor Actuelle Kunst, 2008 (Essay) WhiteWalls, Spring 2008 (Published artwork) Hidden Curriculum, Catalogue for Annette Krauss, Casco Office for Art, Design and Theory (Utrecht, Netherlands) 2008 Radical History Review, Spring 2008 (Artist project) Catalogue Essay for Carlos Motta, Philadelphia ICA, “Tricks of Logic and Constellations of Time,” 2008 (Essay) Art Journal, Fall 2007: “Disappearance/Reappearance: Prisons and the Visual” (Essay) (forthcoming) An Atlas of Radical Cartography, ed Lize Mogel & Lex Bhagat (Published artwork) Journal of Aesthetics and Protest #5, 2007: “Notes on an Emptied Space” (Essay) Crime and Punishment, Exhibition Catalogue, Kunsthalle Tallinn, 2007: “Anywhere/Everywhere: a Translation
of Captivity” (Essay) Grey Room, Summer 2006, No. 24, 2006, “Night Crossings” (Published artwork) No Matter How Bright the Light, the Crossing Occurs at Night, Catalogue Essay, Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, 2006: Interview by Natascha Sadr-Hagihian “A Fortification of Race”, Re-Thinking Marxism, 2006 “Representation, Narration and the Production of Publics & Counter-Publics”, Cork Caucus, collaborative talk
with Simon Sheikh, 2006 “Undeliverable Address: 53 Questions that will not be answered by the White House” (a collaboration with Taisha Paggett),
published with the Vera Llist Center for Arts & Politics Arts & Leisure, Notes on Art, Its Institutions, and their Presumed Criticality, Ed. Julieta Aranda & Carlos Motta, co-published
by Art in General & e-flux, 2005 “Working”, Artwurl.org/PS-122, web-based publication, 2004–present (www.artwurl.org) “Temporary Public Spaces,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, 2005 “Prison Nation”, Cover Photograph, Routledge, 2003 “360 Degrees of Criminal Justice: Documentary, Method & Law”, Sandbox Magazine, 2002 “Revolutions per Minute”, authored with Katya Sander, Surroundings Surrounded: Subjectivity in Space and Science,
Ed: Peter Weibel & Olafur Eliasson, 2001 Politis: French Journal of Politics and Culture, Published photography, 2001 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY David Pagel, Los Angeles Times, 2009
Mike Boehm, Los Angeles Times, 2009
Ron Garmon, L.A. City Beat, 2009
Drew Denny, L.A. Record, 2009 Ian White, Afterall, 2008 Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, February 2008 Julia Bryan-Wilson, Art Forum, October 2007 Cynthia Kriss, Springerin, October 2007 Avery F. Gordon, An Atlas of Radical Cartography, ed. Lize Mogel & Lex Bhagat, 2007 (forthcoming) Jared Sexton, Art Journal, Fall 2007 (forthcoming) Simon Sheikh, Kuritöö ja Karistus/Crime and Punishment, Exhibition Catalogue, Kunsthalle Tallinn, 2007 Anselm Franke, Avery Gordon, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Tom Holert, Ines Schaber, “Night Crossings”, in Grey Room,
Summer 2006, No. 24, 2006 J. Bowers, City Paper, Baltimore, 2005 Yates McKee, Springerin, 2002 Anne Ellegood, Sandbox Magazine, 2002 Benjamin Young, “Social Sectors” Catalog, 2002 Holland Cotter, New York Times, 2001 Robin Clemow, Birmingham Post-Herald, September, 2001 Curt Holman, Creative Loafing, Atlanta, August, 2001 Merle Bertrand, Film Threat, February, 2001 Rod Hewitt, ROUGHCUT, January, 2001 David Wilson, SLUG Magazine, January, 2001 SYMPOSIA, LECTURES & TALKS 2010 Ohio State University Human Rights Conference
Activist Scholars Conference, University of Texas
2009 Basekamp, Philadelphia, Artist Talk
Southern Illinois University, Artst Talk 2008 Otis College of Art and Design, Public Practice Program, Roundtable, “Art Practice in Rural Contexts”
California Institute of the Arts, Artist Roundtable, “Efficacy of Political Art Upon Political Change” Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles, Visiting Artist Presentation UC Irvine, Beyond Field: A Guide Through Practice & Discipline Lecture Series, Artist Talk
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Visiting Artist Presentation
College of the Mainland, Texas City, Artist Talk
2007 BAK (Basis voor Actuelle Kunst), Utrecht, “Movement, Thought & Politics,” Workshop with Taisha Paggett
United Nations Plaza, Berlin, Artist Talk
16 Beaver Group, “When One Place Looks Like Another”
Boston Museum School, Contested Territories Symposia, “When One Place Looks Like Another” 2006 Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, When One Place Looks Like Another, with Ruth Wilson Gilmore UC Irvine, Center for Law and Society, The Look of Law, organized by Simon Leung Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, Artist talk, Madness Ghetto: a Fortification of Race UC Santa Barbara, Department of Sociology, Artist Presentation Vera List Center for Art & Politics, Artistic Approaches to Activism, panel organizer & presenter San Francisco Art Institute, Artist presentation with collaborator, Taisha Paggett 2005 The Cork Caucus, Cork, Ireland, Representation, Narration and the Production of Publics & Counter-Publics Building an Anti-War Culture, Beta-Level & Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, L.A. 2003 Royal Art Academy, Copenhagen, “Corrections: on Neoliberal Prison Growth” Art Academy of Malmö, Sweden, “Corrections: on Neoliberal Prison Growth” Question. Community? Round Table on Community & Art, 6 Months Gallery, L.A. Middlesex College, Lowell, MA, Artists Presentation & Lecture Simon's Rock College of Bard, Boston, MA, Artists Presentation & Lecture 2002 Socialist Scholars Conference, Cooper Union, New York, NY Rebellious Lawyering Conference, Artist Presentation, Yale Law School, New Haven Tulane University Law School, New Orleans, LA, Artist Presentation Harvard University Law School, Cambridge, MA, Artist Presentation “Radical Time” Symposium, Lecture: “Disappearing Dissent: Prison Time, Radicality and Structural Violence,” UCLA Department of Fine Arts Nomads & Residents Los Angeles, CA, Artist Talk 2001 Critical Resistance Northeast Conference, Workshop leader: “Not 'Oz' (We're Not in Kansas Anymore): Representation and Cultural Strategies in Prison-Related Art”,
Columbia Univ, NY Documentary Institute at Antioch College, OH, Artist Talk Oberlin College, OH, Artist Talk City University of New York at Harlem, New York, NY, Visiting Artist College of New Rochelle, Bronx, NY, Visiting Lecturer 2000 Artist Talk and Round Table Discussion, “New Documentary,” Nomads and Residents, Experimental
Sound Studio, New York, NY “Sites of Collective Memory” Symposium, Lecture: “Prison Architecture: Disappearance/ Reappearance”,
Whitney Independent Studio Program, New York 1999 Artist Talk, ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Graduate Critique Panelist 1998 “New Artists in Chicago”, Terra Museum of Art, Chicago, IL, Artist Talk Center for Communications Resources, Chicago, IL, Artist Talk Video Department, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Visiting Artist School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Graduate Critique Panelist WEBSITE URLs General Artist Website: www.ashleyhuntwork.net The Corrections Documentary Project: www.correctionsproject.com A World Map in Which We See: www.aworldmap.com I Won’t Drown: www.iwontdrown.com Prison Maps Website: www.prisonmaps.com Close Tallulah Now! Wesbsite: www.closetallulah.org “Working,” Artwurl/PS-122 publication: www.artwurl.org DISTRIBUTION Third World Newsreel, New York, NY (www.twn.org / twn@twn.org) The Corrections Documentary Project (www.correctionsproject.com / mail@correctionsproject.com SELECT COLLECTIONS/HOLDINGS Rooseum Contemporary Arts Center California Institute for the Arts
Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art Amnesty International American Friends Service Committee Human Rights Watch Harvard University Library Georgetown University Library Yale University Library Antioch College Library University of North Carolina Library Duke University Library University of Toronto Malmö Academy of Art, Sweden Open Society Institute University of California at Berkeley