Matthew Mazzotta
American artist and lecturer (born 1977)
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Matthew Mazzotta (born March 28, 1977) is an American social practice artist known for community engaged artworks in the public space. He describes public space as political, stating that public spaces like downtowns should not only have commercial establishments, but also include spaces where communities can come together.[1]
Matthew Mazzotta | |
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| Born | March 28, 1977 Canton, New York, US |
| Education | School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Known for | Social Practice Art |
| Awards | Dezeen Awards - “Architecture Project of the Year 2018” |
| Website | www |
He works to create public spaces that are built by the community and designed specifically for their needs, and address issues such as food deserts, community well-being, and the loss of cultural identity.[2]
Mazzotta participated in the exhibition “PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity” at the U.S. Pavilion of the 19th Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2025.[3]
Life and Career
Mazzotta grew up in Canton, New York. He attended Oglethorpe University but dropped out after 1 year. During this time, he traveled around the United States in a van and took on jobs involving welding and fabrication. The artworks he made during this time off was what he used to apply to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he received his BFA degree in 2001. Afterwards he took on carpentry work.[4] He later completed a Master of Science in Visual Studies degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Program in Art, Culture, and Technology in 2009.[5]
Growing up, Mazzotta spent summers in Bauline East, a small community south of St. John's on Newfoundland's Southern Shore. He credits his grandfather as an inspiration for his art-making process. His grandfather is a rural Newfoundland native, who when he needed a certain tool, would just make his own to meet his needs, such as a repair, to pick a certain fruit or to fix a motor.[6]
Mazzotta describes skateboarding as an influence to his art practice. He likens the way he creates public art to the way he moves around the city as a skateboarder. Rather than show up to a place to install an already made artwork, he prefers generating an artwork idea through dialogue with local people. "I go into a community as an outsider, with my eyes, and just start to pick up things and talk to people," he said.[4]
Mazzotta’s public art practice grew out of his early involvement with activism. In the 1990s, Mazzotta was affiliated with the hardcore punk scene in Atlanta, Georgia, where he protested for animal rights and environmental causes.[7] For him, public art coincides with activism on the goal of awareness raising. “How do you get a person that doesn't care about something to walk into a conversation or into a dialogue? I use artistic sensibilities, or the privileges art gives us, in terms of capturing someone's attention,” he says.[1] One method he employs to raise awareness is through the creation of spectacles in public space. For him, a spectacle unites people, allowing people who may have opposing viewpoints to share the same space and experience.[4]
He was a recipient of a 2017-18 Loeb Fellowship at Harvard Graduate School of Design[8] and was a 2019-20 Guggenheim Fellow.[9]
Work
Outdoor Living Room (Ongoing)
The Outdoor Living Room is a community-engagement method developed by Matthew Mazzotta as an early phase of several of his public art commissions.[10] The Outdoor Living Room is assembled in public spaces with couches, tables, chairs, rugs and lamps, as a way to invite conversation with the community for which the public artwork is designated. Mazzotta uses this method to welcome the voices and ideas of people who may not attend more formal meetings.[2]
Mazzotta employed this method while developing his STOREFRONT THEATER project in Lyons, Nebraska. During these sessions, a Lyons resident revealed that an abandoned storefront on the town's Main Street was in fact only a freestanding façade, which inspired the STOREFRONT THEATER concept. Residents also identified a lack of activities for the town's children, which shaped the project's eventual multi-generational use.[10] Mazzotta prioritizes how the community will eventually adopt and use the public artwork after it is installed.[11]
For his commission in York, Alabama, Mazzotta similarly asked local residents to bring something from their living rooms to stage an Outdoor Living Room in the middle of Avenue A. Through this discussion they identified the lack of public space in York and the abundance of abandoned buildings as pressing issues, which led to the creation of his OPEN HOUSE project.[12][13]
Mazzotta has staged Outdoor Living Room sessions in several other towns and cities, including Wheaton, Maryland in May, 2015[14]; Athens, Georgia in December, 2015 as part of the city’s development of a Public Art Master Plan lead by Todd Bressi[15]; Boise, Idaho in January, 2020 as a precursor to his project GENTLE BREEZE[16]; Sacramento, California for his 2024 sculpture UPLIFTING EXPERIENCE[17]; Salt Lake City, Utah in April, 2025 as part of his commission for a public artwork at Glendale Park[18]; and Lincoln, Nebraska in September, 2025 for his commission at South Haymarket Park.[19]
Project Park Spark
Project Park Spark (2012) is a dog waste powered streetlight installed in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It features a miniature methane digester which feeds methane into an old fashioned gas streetlight.[20][21][22]
Cloud House
Cloud House (2016) is an art installation consisting of a house-like structure built from recycled wood and tin. Inside, it contains two rocking chairs, while a large cloud shaped sculpture is suspended over roof of the structure.[23] When visitors sit in the rocking chairs, they activate the cloud and water falls from the cloud onto the tin roof, creating the soothing sounds of rain on a tin roof.[24][25][26]
Storefront Theater
The Storefront Theater (2016) is an art installation and community center in Lyons, Nebraska. It re-conceptualizes the facade of an abandoned building to fold down into a theater that seats 80, transforming the town's main street into an outdoor theater.[27] Before Mazzotta acquired the property, it was an empty lot with a street fronting facade.[11]
Steeped in Exploration
Steeped in Exploration (2010)[citation needed]
HOME
HOME (known as Phoebe the Flamingo) (2022) is a public work of art located at the Central Terminal of Tampa International Airport. It depicts a hyperrealistic flamingo with its head and feet submerged, as if wading through water. The exaggerated scale of the flamingo in HOME puts the "lives of these birds in the focus, and puts us, as humans, in awe as they tower above us, reminding us that we all share the same home."[28]
RISING TOGETHER (2025)
RISING TOGETHER is a large, barn-like public artwork and community gathering space, sited on the campus of the National Western Center in Denver, Colorado. Functionally, the artwork is a programmable space intended to host poetry readings, classes, music, dancing, and other community-desired activities. The painted mural on the roof of the structure, titled Sacred Threads, is a collaboration with Denver muralist Bimmer Torres.[29]
The dedication day, June 14, 2025, opened with a blessing of the artworks by Grupo Tlaloc Danza Azteca, including a traditional Aztec dance performance, and closed with a live performance by Los Mocochetes in the barn structure. The piece’s slanted steel beams evokes the barn raising, a community event in which people contribute their strength for a common goal. Rudi Cerri, Public Art Program Manager for Denver Arts and Venues, describes the artwork as “a beautiful new space where community comes together.” RISING TOGETHER is part of a broader expansion of Denver's public art collection tied to the National Western Center's redevelopment.[30]
RISE (2025)
RISE is a monumental, kinetic sculpture of a jellyfish at San Diego International Airport Terminal 1 arrivals area. It is constructed from painted stainless steel and an architectural mesh material called Kaynemaile, originally developed by Kayne Horsham, the armor, weapons, and creatures art director for the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.[31]
The sculpture's canopy is composed of thousands of interconnected rings that shimmer and sway in the wind, evoking the movement of marine life underwater. It is modeled after the purple-striped jellyfish (Chrysaora colorata), an aquatic species often found off the coast of San Diego.[32]
Mazzotta picked the jellyfish after consulting with researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography about the region's marine biology. He selected the sculpture’s colors to match the hues of a San Diego coastal sunset, rather than the jellyfish's natural tones.[33]
Mazzotta describes the title, “RISE,” as a reminder that coastal communities need to be “keeping eyes on climate change and sea levels.”[34] The sculpture hints at the future impact of climate change on a coastal airport. He says “We have to keep our eye on climate change, sustainability and sea level rise,” otherwise “one day a jellyfish could be in the same location.”[33]
RISE was commissioned as part of a broader $10 million public art program for San Diego International Airport Terminal 1.[34]
Awards
2024
- International Sculpture Center Innovator Award, Honorable Mention[35]
2023
- CodaWORX Award, People’s Choice Award[36]
2020
- NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship: Craft/Sculpture[37]
2018
- "Architecture Project of the year" - Dezeen Awards at Tate Modern[38]
- Architizer A+ Award in the category of "Architecture + Community"[39]
- Harpo Foundation Grant for Visual Artists[40]
2017
- World Architecture News WAN Awards in the category of Adaptive Reuse[41]
- American Architecture Award in the category Museums and Cultural Buildings [42]
- Congress for the New Urbanism – Charter Award[43]
- World Architecture Community – 20+10+X Award
- CODA Awards Merit Award for Public Space – Cloud House