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 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.