Erika Diamond (she/her)
German-born and the daughter of two ballet dancers, Erika Diamond is a textile-focused visual artist, curator, and educator. She received a BFA in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Fiber from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and her costumes have been commissioned by Charlotte Ballet. Residencies include McColl Center for Visual Art (NC); STARworks Center for Creative Enterprise (NC); Black Iris Gallery (VA); ABK Weaving Center (WI); Platte Forum (CO); and STEAM studio at UNC Asheville (NC). She received a Regional Artist Project Grant in 2015 from the Arts & Science Council of NC and an Adjunct Faculty Grant from VCU Arts to create new work using bulletproof Kevlar fabric. Diamond has taught at Virginia Commonwealth University (VA) in the Craft/Material Studies Department and Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design (CO). She spends her summers as Assistant Director of Galleries at Chautauqua Institution (NY).
Diamond’s work addresses the vital and fleeting qualities of human contact. It investigates the possibility of immortality, the commemoration of touch, and the thresholds between people. It reveals the vulnerability and self-preservation negotiated during human interaction. Referencing skin, defense mechanisms, and safety procedures, her work questions the fragility and resilience of both the human body and our connections to each other.
matt lambert (they/them)
lambert presents body and body related objects approached through the vernacular of jewelry to create space for the viewer to question positionality, fixedness, and chimerism that goes beyond binary thinking. It is in the inhabited of these queer [and/or] liminal spaces that these interactions gain their strength as a force that is yet to be fully explored for its potential as a terroristic act to westernized and colonial institutions. lambert collaborates with multi-media artists of a vast array of disciplines to reconfigure the current cultural systems of queerness and body politic while challenging the boundaries of craft. By 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.
matt lambert is a non-binary, trans, multidisciplinary collaborator and co-conspirator working towards equity, inclusion, and reparation. They are a founder and facilitator of The Fulcrum Project and currently are a PhD student between Konstfack and University of Gothenburg in Sweden. They hold a MA in Critical Craft Studies from Warren Wilson College and an MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art.
lambert currently is based in Stockholm Sweden and was born in Detroit MI, US where they still maintain a studio. They have exhibited work nationally and internationally including at: Turner Contemporary, Margate, Uk, ArkDes, and Sven-Harrys Konstmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden, Museo de la Ciudad, Valencia , Spain and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, US. lambert represented the U.S in Triple Parade at HOW Museum, Shanghai, China, represented the best of craft in Norway during Salon del Mobile, Milan, Italy and was the invited feature at the Benaki Museum, Athens ,Greece during Athens Jewelry Week. lambert has actively contributed writing to Art Jewelry Forum, Garland, Metalsmith Magazine, Klimt02, Norwegian Craft and the Athens Jewelry Week catalogues and maintains a running column titled Settings and Findings in Lost in Jewelry Magazine.
