Inherent in every moment is the potential to ignite profound change. Art affords us a compelling perspective to act on this possibility.
Matthew Mazzotta works at the intersection of art, activism, and urbanism, focusing on the power of the built environment to shape our relationships and experiences. His community-specific projects integrate new forms of civic participation and social engagement into the built environment and reveal how the spaces we travel through and spend our time living within have the potential to become distinct sites for intimate, radical, and meaningful exchanges. Through his process, each project starts by creating temporary public spaces for listening—an Outdoor Living Room—as a way to capture voices from local people who might not attend more formal meetings. Stemming from this approach are experiences that involve people from a range of backgrounds working together to redefine their collective identity.
Matthew’s public art projects have been named “Architecture Project of the Year” from the Dezeen Awards at the Tate Modern to Huffington Post’s “9 Design Projects Tackling America's Poverty Crisis, One Community At A Time” and have received international art and architecture awards such as the Architizer A+ Award, Azure’s AZ Award, CODAawards, WAN Award, and Americans for the Arts. His work has been featured on CNN, BBC, NPR, The Colbert Report, and Discovery Channel, and published in numerous books, journals, and magazines including Science Magazine, Wired Magazine, and Interior Design Magazine. He has exhibited his work at the Cooper Hewitt-Smithsonian Design Museum in NYC, and spoke at the Asia Society NYC in partnership with UNESCO and the United Nations 75th Anniversary moderated by Rem Koolhaas.
Matthew received his BFA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his Master of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Program in Art, Culture, and Technology. He is a TED Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fulbright Grantee, a Smithsonian Artist in Research, as well as a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University.