Privilege Is A Fulcrum: matt lambert
In the 53rd episode of Perceived Value, host Sarah Rachel Brown speaks with Matt Lambert who is the co-founder of the Fulcrum Project amongst their many endeavors. Matt is a non-binary, trans multidisciplinary practitioner currently based between Detroit Michigan, US and Stockholm Sweden where they are a PhD student between Konstfack & HDK Valand in Sweden.
The two artists connected over Zoom to discuss what prompted Matt and their partner Feather Chiaverirni to form this project during COVID, their experience launching a digital residency as the project's inaugural initiative, and the artists who volunteered their time and knowledge to help make it possible.
Image: Lydia See
Privilege is a fulcrum and should be used to leverage space for empathy and equanimity.
matt lambert is a non-binary, trans multidisciplinary practitioner currently based between Detroit Michigan, US and Stockholm Sweden where they are a PhD student between Konstfack & HDK Valand in Sweden. Their practice is focused on unpacking the witnessing of toxic intimacies and the embedded systems of oppression rooted into the geological strata of culture and land, lambert is interested in ways to disrupt and subvert these mechanisms through a chimerical practice of making, collaborating, writing and curating to create systems for platform building and methodologies to talk with and not at in regards to the othered body. With prompting from the situations created and highlighted through COVID-19 lambert in partnership with Feather Chiaverirni formed The Fulcrum Project, launching a digital residency as the project's inaugural initiative.
The Fulcrum Project residency brought together active participants in the craftscape with eight residents who have been made vulnerable due to the high-risk they experience resulting from poverty and other structural forms of oppression and repression further emphasized due to the pandemic. With this project, the aim is to support residents with professional development as well as exposing residents to the multiplicity of possibilities that exist within a craft discourse. The outcome will be to give residents better tools and information on opportunities and structures to support young careers, while providing unrestricted financial support. Building upon the expertise and pool of knowledge of the presenters, the Fulcrum Project residency provides residents with diverse and valuable resources, varying from practical and foundational proffesionalization strategies - such as bio, cv writing, portfolio compiling,... -, to more advanced conceptual discussions. As a result, residents gain [or improve existing] skills with which they will be able to use or subvert as they will have gained a better understanding of possibilities to make decisions with more rounded understanding of unconventional possibilities and paths to build a practice. This format is inspired by Felipe Castelblanco’s parasitic university program, and shares an interest in using institutional resources to better a community at large.
Instagrams:
@the_fulcrum_project
@matt_lambert_studio
@feather_chiaverini
Donations to The Fulcrum Project: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10KQh3TNYIKmooz2ZkwxM8vfLH6qq1u1RBx4Rc5t6agI/edit?usp=sharing
Further Reading/listening from/by/with matt:
This is Where We Meet
A publication from the MA in Critical Craft at Warren Wilson that matt was an assistant editor and provided a contributing essay A Queer Consideration of Dirt and the Importance of Tending (located on p.219) digitally viewable in entirety and for hard copy purchase here:
https://www.macraftstudieswwc.com/publication-vol-1-20182020
Nicholas Mirzoeff in Conversation with matt lambert
Listen here for a discussion on decolonizing national museums:
https://soundcloud.com/user-79249665/matt-lambert-paired-conversation
Matt Lambert in conversation with Máret Ánne Sara about nomadism, indigenous rights and colonialism
Recognizing ground: where indigenous and queer practices meet
http://www.norwegiancrafts.no/articles/recognizing-ground-where-indigenous-and-queer-practices-meet
Upcoming:
Desire Paths @ The Center for Craft curated by Lauren Kalman and matt lambert
https://www.centerforcraft.org/news/the-center-for-craft-announces-curatorial-fellows
