Unconventional Filmmaker Lambert To Visit Oberlin
BY CHRISTINA MORGAN

Imagine spending two and a half weeks with robbers and killers documenting and decoding a long-standing tradition of tattooing inside eight of Russia’s most inaccessible prisons. This is exactly what cutting-edge filmmaker/photographer Alix Lambert, the last artist featured in Oberlin’s Maverick Artists/Visionary Educators Series, experienced while recording her film The Mark of Cain. Lambert, a native of Washington D.C., will give a lecture about The Mark of Cain in the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at 8 p.m. on Monday. The film chronicles tattooing in Russian prisons, which became a mode of communication among prisoners and a way to mark social divisions as well. The tattoos symbolize everything from how many convictions a prisoner has to their political and socio-economic status. 

The Mark of Cain, however, explores much more than just the tattoos themselves. Lambert also documents the miserable prison conditions and the divisions between younger and older prisoners. The film shows how the older prisoners remain committed the practice of tattooing for social status, while the post-Communist prisoners seek to adorn themselves with images of capitalism and the West such as Madonna, Cindy Crawford and even dollar bills. “I was interested in the tattoos as an entrance way into the conditions of these prisoners’ lives,” Lambert said in an abcnews.com interview. 

Lambert’s The Mark of Cain was featured on the ABC news program Nightline with Ted Koppel and was shown last November at the Margaret Meade Festival in New York City.

Lambert is well-versed in other forms of art besides filmmaking, in which she has no formal training. Lambert graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1990, where she majored in sculpture. Throughout her career, Lambert has held eight solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions in areas ranging from drawings to still photographs. 

Lambert has undertaken some rather unconventional projects as well. In 1996, Lambert created an all-girl punk band, Platipussy, shot a fictional documentary of the band’s adventures, recorded a Platipussy album and even created band merchandise. Lambert also taught herself how to tattoo, tattooed her friends with the images of their choice, and then took photographs and hung them in a gallery. 

Alix Lambert’s diverse talent should prove to be an interesting lecture for anyone with an interest in visual arts. Even those without a specific interest in visual arts should gain something from Lambert’s discussion of the political and social issues found in The Mark of Cain and her well-rounded art endeavors.