Ashleigh Kane

an inspiring editor always on the pulse of arts and culture Encouraging today’s youth to explore their world through photography.

I’m an editor, writer, consultant, curator, and art buyer. I split my time between Melbourne, Australia, and London, UK. I spent seven years (2013-2020) at Dazed & Confused as the Arts & Culture Editor. Now I work as a freelancer, writing for magazines like The Face, i-D, Highsnobiety, AnOther, Elephant, etc, consulting and copywriting for brands and creative agencies, and finding the most exciting new image-makers for brands like Nike, Converse, Tommy Hilfiger, etc., with my work at Thursday’s Child. I also launched a newsletter called eye spied, which spotlights photographers and artists whose work inspires me.

your greatest inspirations or influences?

The people I surround myself with. Whether that’s IRL or online. I’m lucky to have lived in London for 11 years, amongst a community of the most forward-thinking minds in art, fashion, music, photography. With Covid, and when I’m in Australia, that shifts to existing almost wholly online, and I find a lot of amazing connections can happen there if you allow them. I’m inspired every day. I love going to museums and galleries because in those spaces is where I do my best thinking. Something sparks an idea, and then it flows like that. It might be something on the wall, a text in the catalogue, or something in the gift shop.

You’ve done a lot of things in the creative world. What are some of your greatest achievements or career highlights.

I’m really proud of the work I did while at Dazed, discovering and supporting some of the photographers, filmmakers, and artists who are now the best in the world. I was always very aware of the power and reach of Dazed as a platform, and I wanted to do my best to widen the landscape to allow more voices and more experiences in. The most rewarding moment in my career was running the Dazed+Labs photography workshops at the Rugby Portobello Trust youth club in West London with Eddie Otchere. There was something very special about those Tuesday evenings, and I hope we can get back to teaching after Covid.

How has this year changed your creativity and work process?

Dazed was a small team, so I always have worked on my own, with a network of freelancers. It was just myself looking after Art + Photography content. So communicating via email or on the phone is native. As an after hours freelancer, I already had a few years working in cafes or at my kitchen table, conducting interviews, and writing features, or consulting, curating, etc. With Thursday’s Child, our lifeblood is in creating shoots, so that obviously changed a lot. We were lucky because the business is already nimble, global, and a community full of young image-makers whose ways of working are already small but with huge ideas, so adapting to restrictions, shrinking teams, and local shoots was something we were already doing pre-Covid. 

Who do you consider to be an icon of our time?

There’s so many, but one of those is Munroe Bergdorf.

She is a great role model for young people to look up to. So much grace and strength, even in the face of great adversity. She’s the people’s queen. There are so many people doing good in the world, but she stands out.

What do you think about the art world, in the sense of all these new platforms popping up and sometimes people with zero experience pretending to sell art?

I mean, if you’re pretending to sell art, like your question asks, then that’s not good, that’s probably a scam and people should do their background checks. But otherwise I think it’s great that the art world is finding ways of democratising. We have been conditioned to believe that the way the art world works now is how it should. But that’s not true. The art world has long been a single step ladder, and there’s barely any rungs left.

For people with zero experience who are doing their thing, trying to take a piece of the pie, good for them. I didn’t have any experience when I got into the art world, so if the gatekeepers had pushed me back, I don’t know where I’d be now. Experience, to me, doesn’t come from having a school degree or nepotism, but that’s traditionally what it’s seen as. I never looked at anyone’s CV beyond their contact details. I only looked at the work they were presenting me and how they spoke about what they do, what they make, or what they write about. People are creating their own platforms from scratch, in their own ways, and those are some of the best out there. If the entrance to the art world is widening, then that’s only a good thing. There’s enough space for everyone.

Anything else Ashleigh?  

If you want to keep up with what I’m doing, subscribe to eye spied www.eyespied.substack.com or follow me on Instagram www.instagram.com/ashleighkane