Ash Thayer

Ash Thayer is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker and multimedia artist whose work explores power, identity, and subculture through both documentary and narrative storytelling. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, she holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA from Columbia University. Thayer is the director of Metal Kills: The Sport of Western Viking Fighting, currently in post-production. The feature documentary grew out of years of embedded research and photography within the international Viking fighting community and reflects her long-standing interest in ritual, endurance, and contemporary myth-making. Expanding her practice into scripted storytelling, Thayer is also the creator of Anthem X, a narrative television pilot rooted in her lived experience within New York’s Lower East Side squatting community during the 1990s. The project extends the themes of her earlier documentary and photographic work into fictional form. She is the author of Kill City: Lower East Side Squatters 1992-2000 (powerHouse Books), documenting the squatting movement where she lived and worked. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in collections including the Saatchi Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of the City of New York. Thayer has taught at New York University and Columbia University.