Arts Education
Jessica has been eaching her practice for over 10 years, with workshops that explore cultural identity, belonging and histories of oppression as well as practical skill sharing workshops in animation, storytelling and more recently, natural dye. She also creates teachable resources for young people to use.
Her arts education work has seen her collaborate with such arts galleries and institutions such as the Tate, ICA, Drawing Room, Autograph ABP, Watts Gallery, Camden Arts Centre and Wellcome Trust
She is also a part-tine Associate Lecturer in Animation at Goldsmiths on the BA (Hons) Media and Communication.
Below are a sample of some of the type of learning experiences she has run over the past years.
Modern Painters New Decorators - Bundle Dye Workshops (Sept 2025)
To support her solo presentation ‘Chimera Island’ at Loughborough based gallery, Modern Painters New Decorators, Jessica ran two workshops with local young people that explored painting and animating with natural dye as well as making bundle dye prints, using flowers from Jessica’s own allotment.
Once the fabric prints were steamed, short animated loops were created by the workshop participants with natural dye. This dye (Madder, Logwood and Brazilwood) were created by the artist for her paintings in ‘Chimera Island’ and the dye materials history and legacy were used as a starting point for idea and image making for the workshop.
South London Gallery
CPD Workshop For Teachers (April 2024) and CPD Half-term Workshop For Teachers - How To Build An Anti-Racist Classroom (Oct 2024)
For both these CPD sessions, Ashman was asked to work with a group of local Camberwell teachers and educators to consider what an Anti-Racist Classroom could look like. Responding to the current exhibitions on at SLG ( Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminisms and The Art of Protest and Nairy Baghramian: Jumbled Alphabet) and the educators lived experiences, Jessica guided the group to explore the possibilities of decolonising the educators classrooms.
BEAF Artist Associate (Jan - Oct 2024)
As part of the BEAF (Bournemouth Educational Arts Foundation) Access Residency, Jessica and fellow artist Raju Rage were Associate Artists of the programme designing a series of workshops, guest lecturers and learning experiences over 10 months.
Jessica and Raju also acted as mentors, guiding the 10 selected Global Majority residents towards a final collaborative exhibition/event in late October 2024, ‘Connected Grounds’
Tate, CPD Workshops, Oct 2022 and May 2023
Working with Tate Schools & Teachers team and a cohort of teaching peers from around the country, Jessica led two CPD workshops in October 2022 and May 2023, involving creative discussion, practical activities, reflection and collaborative working.
The aim of two days was to create strategies for supporting teaching and learning with art that the teachers can take back to their class rooms as well as encountering new cultural references and techniques for decolonising their classrooms.
Emotion Postcards at Drawing Room (July 2020)
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jessica was approached by Drawing Room to create a lockdown activity for young people as part of their ROCK PAPER SCISSORS programme. Jessica created Emotion Postcards (2020) as way of getting young people and children to enagage with their emotions during a very uncertain time.
Across The Seas at National Maritime Museum, Oct 2020
Jessica taught interviewing techniques as well as stop motion animation skills which they then used to animate their interviews.
Tate: Schools Workshop Artist (2019 - 2020)
From September 2019 to April 2020 (the residency was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic) Jessica was an Schools Workshop Artist alongside artists Richard Phoenix, Beverley Bennett and Khaleb Brooks.
Once a week, the artists would run workshops to schools and colleges visiting the Tate Modern from across the country, aged between 5 to 18, relating their arts practice and current research ideas to the public collections of the Tate.
Wellcome Trust: Ayruvedic Man: Encounters With Indian Medicine - Drop In Animation Workshops, Jan 2018
Using the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition as inspiration (Ayurvedic Man: Encounters With Indian Medicine), Jessica facilitated a drop in cut-out, pixilation and 2D animation workshops for 14-19 year olds.
ICA, In Formation Experimental Animation Workshop, Aug 2017
In August 2017, Jessica ran an experimental animation workshop for young women of colour as part of the ICA's In Formation summer programme. The participants got to dip their toes into artists film, using cut-out collage animation
Eastside Educational Trust
From 2014 - 2019 Jessica worked with the educational charity Eastside Educational Trust to provide animation workshops, mentoring and filmmaking advice to children and young adults.
Working across a variety of schools and youth clubs across London, some of the workshops and mentoring run from anything from an hour to a whole week and cover aspects such as introductions into stop-motion, storytelling, storyboarding and filmmaking advice.