ABOUT ASHLIN

My work is often an indictment of the structures and systems that seem to strip us of our humanity — the very systems that have disconnected us from our bodies, from community, and from the earth. My work explores these ruptures and sites of fission — questioning how we got here and how we might begin to heal from this collective wound of disconnection.

I grew up in suburban New Jersey feeling isolated by the division and space between us all. I went to college at a school riddled with eating disorders and found myself starving. Growing up in these environments, it became clear that this sense of disconnection was contagious — it was in the air and in the water. It got into me.

I studied in London during the pandemic shortly after deleting social media. With this placebo connection gone, a stark reality sank in: I felt disconnected from everything alive — including myself.

I felt like I truly wouldn't make it through the winter in London. Locked in an apartment alone, surrounded by cement and urban sprawl. I fled to the west of Ireland — my ancestral homeland. For the first time, I felt like I was home. I felt an unbroken connection with the land. I felt like I came home to myself. It affirmed to me that connection to self and community was predicated on this foundational connection to the earth and nature herself. I finally felt held enough to completely break down and break open.

My work emerges out of my own personal life and experience — of feeling like I was born in a broken place. Part of me was always seeking home and wholeness, which felt perpetually elusive to me. My work explores how we got here. And seeks to offer some kind of small antidote — by holding space for beauty, making, material, feeling, and story. I hope to infuse soul and life into that which has been pillaged, exploited, left lying empty and forgotten.

My medium is always changing but is drawing upon some kind of personal or collective memory. I work with things that are found. Things that have a history — my own clothes that have disintegrated, discarded plastic plants, clay foraged from specific sites, found footage cut from mass media and movies. I often take the mundane materials of what's here and re-contextualize them so that we may see and know our culture and present moment more deeply.

Ashlin is an artist and designer exploring the intersections of materiality, storytelling, and the human experience. With a Master’s in Material Futures from Central Saint Martins and a BA in Studio Art & Film from Vanderbilt, her work spans exhibitions from London to Santa Fe. Training as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Ashlin blends art, performance, and body-focused inquiry to reimagine our connection to the world.