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Steve Lambert
Pronouns
He/him
Date and place of birth
b. 1976, Los Angeles, CA
Current location
Beacon, NY
Year(s) of residency and/or fellowship
200607080910, Fellow

Steve Lambert is an American artist who works with issues of advertising and the use of public space.

Lambert has worked alongside over 1,400 artists and activists, in 16 countries, on four continents, helping them use creative means to effect power. Trained in the arts, he is known for large-scale, public projects that engage new audiences on complex topics through the social science of comedy, games, theater, and democratic participation.

Lambert is the co-founder and co-director of the Center for Artistic Activism, a research and training institute helping activists be more creative and artists be more effective.

As an artist, Lambert’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, from art galleries to Times Square to protest marches, featured in four documentary films and over two dozen books, and collected by museums and The Library of Congress. Lambert has presented at the United Nations several times. His research is included in a United Nations report on the impact of advertising on cultural rights, as well as the basis for a book on popular understandings of capitalism.

Over the past five years, he’s focused on working with sex workers on campaigns for human rights, fighting for safe consumption spaces with people who use drugs like heroin and methamphetamine, and working with Treatment Action Group battling pharmaceutical companies over pricing for HEP-C treatments.

He was a Senior Fellow at New York’s Eyebeam from 2006 to 2010, developed and led workshops for Creative Capital Foundation, co-directs the Center for Artistic Activism, and is an Assistant Professor at SUNY Purchase. He also was a former member of the Board of Directors at Eyebeam.

Eyebeam models a new approach to artist-led creation for the public good; we are a non-profit that provides significant professional support and money to exceptional artists for the realization of important ideas that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Nobody else is doing this.

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