Ashley Hunt

Ashley Hunt (born April 3, 1970 in Los Angeles) is an American artist, activist, writer and educator, primarily known for his photographic and video works on the American prison system, mass incarceration and the prison abolition movement. He is currently a faculty member of the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts.

Hunt’s work is often embedded within the activism and organizing of community organizations, tracing the histories, systems and proliferation of prisons throughout the US, while also exploring vision itself and how people fail to see the extent of incarceration’s impact, the relationship of captivity to the persistence of racism in the U.S., and with what Hunt considers the visual politics of mass incarceration.

Hunt’s art and documentary works are known to push the boundaries between art and activism, often trying to bring the two together. His map-based artworks accompanied a growth in mapping and cartography in contemporary art and activist strategies in the mid-2000s. He has collaborated with other artists, including taisha paggett and her dance company, WXPT and Kim Zumpfe, the artist group of Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Katya Sander and David Thorne, and with Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Regina Agu, Journey Allen, Lisa E. Harris, Michael Khalil Taylor, Rebecca Novak, and Ifeanyi “Res” Okoro at Project Row Houses.

Hunt’s activist projects have featured collaborations with Critical Resistance, California Coalition of Women Prisoners, Friends and Families of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children and the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, the Underground Scholars, and Mass Liberation Arizona.

Hunt’s works have exhibited at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum, the Coleman Center for the Arts, Documenta 12, the New Museum, and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Provided by Wikipedia