ARTIST PROJECT
The Main Idea
Matthew Mazzotta
Matthew Mazzotta
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 public 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 – ‘Outdoor Living Room’ – as a way to capture voices from local people that might not attend more formal meetings. Stemming from this approach are experiences that involve people from a range of backgrounds working together to create new models of living that contribute to local culture beyond the economic realm.
Matthew’s 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 dozens of international art and architecture awards such as Architizer’s A+ Award, Azure’s AZ Award, The WAN Award, CODA Award, SXSW Place By Design Award, The Chicago Athenaeum’s American Architecture Award, The Congress for the New Urbanism’s Charter Award, as well as, six of his projects have been recognized by the Americans For the Arts. His work has been featured on CNN, BBC, NPR, The Huffington Post, Discovery Channel, and Science Magazine to name a few, and presented at the Cooper Hewitt – Smithsonian Design Museum in NYC.
Matthew Mazzotta received his BFA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Masters of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Program in Art, Culture and Technology. He is TED Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University.
With The Main Idea, artist Matthew Mazzotta mobilizes communities, local government, artists, designers and architects to transform failing downtown city centers into creative and sustainable spaces for new business and social life. Through direct community engagement, the collective ensures that these spaces, from single buildings to entire neighborhoods, are designed, built and programmed to restore the most important aspect of small town life: the human connection. This work at the intersection of art, activism and urbanism focuses on the power of the built environment to shape human relationships and experiences, advocating for responsibility and sustainability across all sectors of city and community life within the built and natural environments.
Matthew’s work demonstrates the power of art and artists in revitalizing public spaces and equipping local communities to take charge of their own cultural and economic development.
GALLERY
