Graduate Work / Seminars

Vermont College of Fine Arts, MFA Program

Ashford was hired as an instructor at the Vermont College MFA in Visual Arts program in 1991. The program was founded by G Roy Levin the year before and established a structure of process-oriented low residency education – that at the time was a revolutionary break from traditional programs. The program rejected the historical burden of mastery-based professionalization in order to allow students to find their own tactical relationships to making art as an autonomous and institutional re-defining occupation. Institutional decision were made through collective decision by the resident faculty, including Faith Wilding, Steve Kurtz, Humberto Ramirez, Miwon Kwon, Claire Pentecost, and Gregg Bordowitz. After G Roy’s retirement in 2000, Ashford became faculty chair and worked to re-design the artists-lecture format to include participatory project based experiences, student initiated instruction, greater involvement by off campus artist-mentors and other changes. He left the program in 2004 in order to address the growing demands of his studio output and the developing changes at The Cooper Union.

“Notes on the Pedagogical Importance of Failure” from: Education, Information, Entertainment. Ute Meta Baur, ed., Editions Selene, Vienna, 2001 _(link)

Founder G Roy Levin’s graduation speech _(link)

Documentation of Ashford’s revisiting VC MFA as mentor for Nadia Martinez in 2020 _(link)

Non-Human Seminar – taught at the Salzberg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts, 2015

This course encouraged a speculative and nonlinear body of collaborative artistic research and practice that aimed to expand definitions of human life, bodies, and politics as they were experienced by class participants. Key in our work was the designing proposals to each other, that could challenge the received expectations and qualities of “humanness” as they are defined in the present. Theoretical and visual lines of production were: the quality of the human that wishes for death, the body that is liberated in becoming a machine, the historical figure of the monster, a reemphasis of the animal aspect of humanity managed to disappear from culture, the human as a resident of a planetary city perpetually in revolution, and the critique of abnormality and insanity as an opportunities for regeneration.
These questions were addressed through a series of selected readings, class demonstrations and discussions. Daily collective meetings allowed individual histories and concerns of each participant to be discussed in depth. More centrally, a series of practical assignments followed through a reciprocal participatory conditions set up by each participant. In other words, we each proposed to the group alternative failures of the Historical category of the human being. The instructor claimed no expertise in any aspect of the common dream inherent in the central texts and objects we examined together, and instead proposed that participants invent such expertise together.

This course was taught over two consecutive summers.

Participants in the second summer, 2015, were: Lena Dittmann, Alteronce Gumby, Sophia Hammer, Nan Hao, Christian Ingemann, Maha Maamoun, Carom McLaughlin, Sarah Mendelsohn, Fred Schmidt-Arenales, Stephen Walters, Ilyn Wong, and Zuzana Zabkova. Assistant instructor was Eva Englebert.

– Intro _ download

– Readings

– Instructional Images

– Link to Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts

Non-Human Seminar – taught at the Salzberg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts, 2014

This course encourages a speculative and nonlinear body of collaborative artistic research and practice that aims to expand definitions of human life, bodies, and politics as experienced by class participants. Key in our work will be designing proposals that challenge the received expectations and qualities of “humanness” as it is defined by the present. Examples could be: the human that is driven toward a wish for death, the body liberated in combination with machines, the historical figure of the monster, the importance of the animal aspect of humanity hidden from culture, the human as a resident of a global city perpetually in revolution, or the critique of what is understood as normality and sanity as an opportunity for regeneration.
These questions will be addressed through a series of selected readings, class demonstrations and discussions. There will be daily collective meetings in which the individual histories and concerns of each participant can be discussed in depth. More centrally, there will be a series of practical assignments that the instructor will also have to follow through a reciprocal participatory set of assignments gleaned from each participant. In other words, we will each propose to the group an alternative to the failures of humanity. The instructor claims no expertise in any aspect of the common dream inherent in the central texts and objects we will examine together, and instead proposes that we invent such expertise together.

This course was taught over two consecutive summers.

Participants in the first summer, 2014, were: Vlad Basalici, Viktoria Bayer, Rochele Gomez, Isla Hansen, Melina Hennicker, Peter Hermans, Romy Kiebling, Flavia Mihaela Lupu, Jessica Posner, Isabel Schwaninger, Milena Soporowska, Ksenia Telepova, and Ayse GÃ¼l YÃ¼ceil. Assistant instructor was Eva Englebert.

– Intro _ download

– Readings

– Instructional Images

– Link to Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts

– Link to Summer Academy archive.