Mary Mattingly

Mary Mattingly was born in 1978 in Rockville, Connecticut, and lives and works in New York. Combining a visual-art practice with environmental activism and education, Mattingly wrote a manifesto that opens with the statement, “Art can transform people’s perceptions about value, and collective art forms can reframe predominant ideologies.”

Mattingly’s determination to create alternative means of survival in the face of a dystopian future has resulted in various projects, from wearable cocoons that can store water and solar power to alternative urban infrastructure—such as the Flock House Project (2012), for which she constructed portable living units that moved throughout New York City. Her most recent project, Swale (2016), is a “floating food forest” providing fresh produce to the public.

Links:
Artist’s website

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Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching in a Pandemic

Joe Fusaro, Art21 senior education advisor, considers the challenges of maintaining a teaching practice during a global crisis.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Stuck at Home

During the long, odd, Zoom-filled first days of the pandemic’s arrival in Seattle, I thought about how the traditional art classroom is not always the most ideal place for making art, especially contemporary art. Students usually come to the art room and find traditional art-making tools and materials: paints, brushes, pencils, pens, paper, canvas, and […]

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with the Great Outdoors

Art21 senior education advisor Joe Fusaro collects seven Art21 films showing artists who find ways to work in—or work for—the benefit of the great outdoors.


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