Artist Publications, Exhibitions, Residencies, and More

Northampton based interdisciplinary artist and storyteller, Lachlan Thompson, is known for delving into the realm between public and private memory. They transform collections of oral stories, photography, poetry, archival, and folkloric material into fantastical collages – illustrating connections between who we are, where we come from, how we belong, and how the stories we share shape our past, present and future.

Since graduating from Hampshire College in 2020, they have continued to build upon their work investigating ancestry, identity, archetype, multiplicity, and queerness with features in numerous exhibitions, literary journals, and zines.

Publications

Beyond Queer Words (Fifth Edition, Poetry) - January 2024

Beyond Queer Words is a poetry collection celebrating diversity, freedom, acceptance, truth, identity, complexity, love. The Fifth Edition features 55 carefully selected poems and visual art.

  • Emergence, Written Poem

  • True North, Analog Collage Poem

Suboart Magazine Nr. 14 - 2023

Suboart Magazine is an international art magazine for emerging artists, creating an aspiring and affordable space to tell their stories through pictures and words. My work was featured as part of the November editions of the magazine — featuring a total of 77 artists from more than 20 countries who work in textile art, sculpture, installation, photography, painting, drawing, digital art, collage, and more.

  • The High Priestess, Personalized Mixed Media Collage

  • The Magician, Personalized Mixed Media Collage

  • The World, Personalized Mixed Media Collage

Mem or Y Exhibition & Zine by Nefarious Contemporary - December 2020

Nefarious Contemporary is a gallery space dedicated to representing female-identifying, non-binary, queer, BIPOC peoples who have activated against the anti-other society of recent history.

The Mem or Y exhibition and zine has been curated to include some of the most diverse and talented artists of our time. When you think of memory, what comes to mind? Maybe you’re reminded of a moment from your past: your first kiss, the smell of your grandparent's house, a moment distant and far behind where you are now. Maybe you’re thrown into deep contemplation of just how ephemeral our memories truly are. How with each recollection, we accidentally alter the entirety of that moment forever.

  • Flashback, Analog Collage

Ode to Queer Art & Literary Journal - October 2020

Now defunct, Ode to Queer is an unabashedly queer literary and artistic journal highlighting art from LGBTQIA+ artists that is experimental, fringe, and vulnerable. Ode to Queer is working to create a queer cannon that centers and celebrates marginalized and rural voices without hiding behind diluted language or imagery to appease cis-hetero-centered viewership.

  • Buried Orchids, Written Poem

  • Gender Compliance, Analog Collage

Exhibitions

Creativity in the Time of Covid-19: Art as a Tool for Combatting Inequity and Injustice, Amatryx Gaming Lab & Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo, NY, August - September 2023

Creativity in the Time of COVID-19: Art as a Tool for Combating Inequity and Injustice (CTC-19) is a project documenting everyday people are using creativity to cope with the pandemic. Crowdsourcing examples of creativity during COVID-19, the project includes physical exhibits as well as a digital archival collection of the works submitted by contributors from all over the globe.  The project endeavored to reach those disproportionately impacted by the pandemic whenever possible. 

  • A Portrait of Modern Bindings & Beginnings, Mixed Media on Canvas

Word of Mouth: Folklore, Collage, and Community Exhibition, A’ The Airts, Sanquhar, Scotland - September 2023

Since Fall 2022, Kolaj Institute has engaged international collage artists in a series of artist residencies around the theme of folklore. In September 2022, artists visited Sanquhar, Scotland and made art about the folklore collected in William Wilson’s 1904 book, Folk Lore and Genealogies of the Uppermost Nithsdale. The artists reimagined the tales in the book in a 21st Century context and invited us to see folklore as the imagination of the past, understood in the present. In response to the “Mythical Landscape” exhibition, a group of artists made artwork about folklore that was important to them. This work is on view at A’ the Airts in Sanquhar during the month of September 2023.

  • Visions of the Runes, Analog Collage

  • Becoming Odin, Anlog Collage

The Dreamweavers, Solo Exhibition, The Bloomery Art Gallery & Meeting Place, Northampton, MA - June 2023

The Dreamweavers is Lachlan’s first solo exhibition. Existing in the realm between folklore, myth, and our embodied realities The Dreamweavers is the culmination of 42 hours of interviews with queer, trans, and Two Spirit survivors of abuse, sexual violence, and relationship violence about their healing journeys and relationship to themselves. These stories were then collaboratively transformed into tarot cards using imagery and portraiture that is personally significant and emblematic of each survivors’ experience, identity, and insight.

The exhibition is now viewable on the Astral Cherry Healing Arts website.

Spring Outlook Community Gallery Show, Elusie Gallery at Big Red Frame, Easthampton, MA - May 2022

This exhibit showcases the unique creations of artists from two Eastworks-based community arts spaces: Resilient Community Arts and the Color Collaborative, and features paintings, drawings, textiles, sculptures, and more.

  • Seeds of Change, Painting

Community Exhibition, Looky Here Gallery, Greenfield, MA - January 2022

Looky Here is a multi-functional Art space serving the community of Western Massachusetts and Southern Vermont. From January till March of 2022, Looky Here showcased a juried selection of artwork.

  • The Sun, Digital Collage

BO/DY Virtual Exhibition, Nefarious Contemporary - March 2021

Nefarious Contemporary is a gallery space dedicated to representing female-identifying, non-binary, queer, BIPOC peoples who have activated against the anti-other society of recent history. In March of 2021, they hosted a virtual exhibition dedicated to the bodies that have been told they are too much // not enough.

  • Gender Transgression, Analog Collage

Triple SSS: Sensual, Sexual, Smut Gallery Show, Nina’s Nook Art Gallery, Turners Falls, MA - February 2020

The sixth annual Triple SSS show features sculpture from artists working in wood, bone, metal, clay and paper to create form that suggest a spectrum of sensual from mildly erotic to explicitly naughty. Photography, prints, and paintings feature both figurative and abstract fantasies and improvisations from mild to wild.

  • Heavenly Bodies, Analog Collage

Residencies

Poet in Residence, Kristine Mann Library, New York, NY - January 2024

The mission of the Kristine Mann Library is conceived as providing intellectual access, as well as assistance and training in the location and use of its unique collection, to students and others interested in the work of C.G. Jung. The library is the steward of its present resources and of the information and services that will become available in the future.

This micro-residency featured a septet of poets creating work inspired by the library’s collections.

Collage & Folklore Residency, Knoxville Museum of Art in Collaboration with Kolaj Institute, Knoxville, TN - March 2023

An in-person residency at the Knoxville Museum of Art in Tennessee in collaboration with the Kolaj Institute centered on collage artists who want to incorporate history and folklore into their artist practice. Residents made artwork for an exhibition in Sanquhar, Scotland and a yet-to-be published anthology.

  • Visions of the Runes, Analog Collage

  • Becoming Odin, Analog Collage

Curatorial Work

Queer/Trans Magic Magazine

Lachlan began curating Queer/Trans Magic Magazine, an anthology project highlighting creatives whose work explores, honors, and transforms lineages of queer magic and resilience in mid-2023 as part of Astral Cherry Healing Arts. After the immense success of the first issue, Shapeshifting, they decided to expand the project by launching Fortuna Major Press as a platform to highlight the work of emerging and established healers, organizers, artists, storytellers, and cultural catalysts. Queer/Trans Magic is now expected to become a triannual offering.

Copies are available on the Fortuna Major Press store as well as the Astral Cherry Healing Arts store.

Archetypes of Healing: A Tarot Art Exhibition for Survivors of Childhood Trauma - 2022

Lachlan curated the Archetypes of Healing exhibition to create a platform for survivors of childhood trauma to share stories of healing inspired by their artistic processes and tarot as a tool for self exploration.

The exhibition is viewable on the Astral Cherry Healing Arts website.

Our Truth, Our Power Exhibition, Survivor Arts Collective - April 2021

Survivor Arts Collective is a community of healing, empowerment, and activism. As a member of the collective, Lachlan curated the Our Truth, Our Power Exhibition to debut during Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) with the goal of disrupting traditional narratives around survivorship.

The exhibition is viewable on the Survivor Arts Collective website.

Other Features

Wingless Dreamer Podcast, Season 2 Premiere: Storytelling Sparks Social Change Ft. Lachlan Thompson

  • Interview by Shreya Mishra of Wingless Dreamer. Delve into how narratives wield the power to revolutionize empathy and drive social change. [March 10th, 2024]

Interview with Ryan Feyre of The Northampton Reminder