Artist, partner, daughter, sister, and collaborator.
"I was raised in an agricultural town near Springfield, Massachusetts, where the local drinking water was contaminated by agricultural chemicals. That experience shaped my understanding of clean water as both increasingly rare and a fundamental right—and it deepened my resolve to protect it. Since 2001, I’ve lived in New York City, creating sculptural ecosystems that prioritize access to food, shelter, and water. My work often takes the form of participatory public projects rooted in care, ecological awareness, and collective imagining." - Mary Mattingly
Mary Mattingly is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores ecological relationships through sculptural ecosystems, performative installations, and research-based collaborations. Rooted in a deep inquiry into urban ecology and interdependence, her work addresses urgent issues around water, food systems, and climate adaptation.
Her public projects, such as Swale, a floating food forest in New York City’s waterways; Waterpod, a self-sufficient living structure on a barge; and the Flock House Project, a series of mobile habitats, reimagine civic infrastructure through community engagement and poetic provocation.
Mattingly’s work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Storm King Art Center, the International Center of Photography, MoMA, the Barbican, Seoul Art Center, and the Palais de Tokyo. She has received fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Yale School of Art, A Blade of Grass, and the Anchorage Museum among others. Her work has been featured in Art21, The New York Times, and Le Monde.
At the core of Mattingly’s practice is a belief in art as a form of investigation and a tool for imagining adaptive futures. Her installations often function both symbolically and practically: creating space for gathering, co-learning, and reflecting on systems of resource extraction and ecological resilience.
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BOOKS
2024: David Osrin and Aarathi Prasad. The Work of Art in the Age of Planetary
Destruction.
2022: Nicholas Bell and Julie Decker. Mary Mattingly: What Happens After.
Hirmer.
2022: Deborah Randolph. An Introductory Guide to Qualitative Research in Art
Museums. Routledge.
2021: Katharina Eck, Johanna Hartmann, Kathrin Heinz, Christiane Keim. Wohn/Raum/Denken
– Politiken des Häuslichen in Kunst, Architektur und visueller Kultur.
2019: Amanda Boetzkes. Climate
Realism. Routledge.
2016: Ellen Müller. Elements and Principles of 4D Art and Design. Oxford
University Press.
2015: Henry M. Sayre. A World of Art, 8th edition. Pearson/Laurence King.
2015: Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin. Art in the Anthropocene. Open
Humanities Press.
2015: Speculations (“The future is ______”). Triple Canopy.
2015: Maria Michaels. Media Art and the Urban Environment. Springer.
2014: Eugenie Tsai and Rujeko Hockley. Crossing Brooklyn. Brooklyn Museum.
2014: Common Spaces. Whitney ISP, Whitney Museum.
2012: Maximilian Goldfarb and Matt Bua. Drawing Building. Laurence King.
2012: Jeffrey Kastner. Nature. Whitechapel/MIT Press.
2012: Marilu Knode and Dana Turkovic. Camp Out: Finding Home in an Unstable
World. Laumeier Sculpture Park.
2012: Lexi Lee Sullivan. Temporary Structures. deCordova Sculpture Park and
Museum.
2012: Michelle Bogre. Photography as Activism: Images for Social Change. Focal
Press.
2009: Water. Prix Pictet. teNeues.
2008: Au Féminin. Centre Gulbenkian, Paris.
2008: Trouble in Paradise. Tucson Museum of Art.
2006: Brian Wallis, Edward Earle, Christopher Phillips, Carol Squires, ed.
Joanna Lehan. Ecotopia. ICP/Steidl.
PUBLIC ART
2022: River Lab, Pier 17, New York, NY. Commissioned by Waterfront Alliance.
2021: Limnal Lacrimosa, Glacier National Park, MT.
2021: Public Water, New York, NY. Commissioned by More Art.
2021: Vanishing Point, Thames River, Essex, UK. Curated by Metal and Focal
Point Gallery.
2021: Riverside Park Reading Room, New York, NY.
2021: Malmö Reading Room, Malmö, Sweden.
2020: Ecotopian Library, Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK.
2020: Stars Down to Earth, Brooklyn Public Library, NY. Curated by Cora Fisher.
2019: Open Ocean, Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, CT.
2018: Pull, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA.
2017: Everything At Once, Boulder Public Art, Boulder, CO.
2016–ongoing: Swale, New York City. Floating food forest and sculptural
ecosystem.
2016: Transforming a Military Trailer, MoMA Cullman Center, New York, NY.
2016: WetLand, Sag Harbor, NY. Commissioned by Parrish Museum.
2015: Pull, Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba.
2015: Wading Bridge, Des Moines, IA. Des Moines Public Art Foundation.
2015: Torus, Toronto Waterfront, Ontario, Canada.
2015: Flock House, Staten Island, NY. NYC DCLA Percent for Art.
2014: WetLand, Philadelphia, PA. Knight Foundation / UPenn Environmental
Humanities.
2014: Flock House Project Omaha, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE.
2013: Triple Island, New York, NY. Commissioned by Paths to Pier 42.
2012–2015: Flock House Project, multiple NYC locations including Bronx Museum,
Battery Park, Flushing Meadows.
2012: Wearable Portable Architecture, Manila, Philippines. U.S. State Department
/ smARTpower / Bronx Museum.
2009: Waterpod Project. Founder. Traveled to NYC’s five boroughs.
2005: Waterways, 51st Venice Biennial, Italy. Co-curated with Renée Vara.
2005: Waterways and Beyond, 9th Istanbul Biennial, Turkey. Co-curated with
Renée Vara.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025: Holding Water, The James Gallery, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY.
2024: Night Gardens, Robert Mann Gallery, New York, NY.
2023: Ebb of a Spring Tide, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY.
2022: Proposals, Staniar Gallery, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA.
2021: Pipelines and Permafrost, Robert Mann Gallery, New York, NY.
2021: Wearable Homes, Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK.
2021: Scarred Landscapes, National Arts Club, New York, NY.
2019: Last Library, CU Art Museum, Boulder, CO.
2018: Open Ocean, Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, CT.
2018: Because For Now We Still Have Poetry, Robert Mann Gallery, New York, NY.
2018: What Happens After?, BRIC, Brooklyn, NY.
2017: I… I’ll Go On, Monet’s Garden, Giverny, France.
2017: I… I’ll Go On, Watkins College of Art, Nashville, TN.
2016: Objects Unveiled: Boxing, Rolling, Stretching, and Cutting, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
2016: Mass and Obstruction, Light Work, Syracuse, NY.
2015: Pull, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana, Cuba.
2014: Mary Mattingly, Bemis Center, Omaha, NE.
2013: House and Universe, Robert Mann Gallery, New York, NY.
2011: The Island Is Also the Origin, WINTEC, Hamilton, New Zealand.
2011: The Investigation, Constitution, and Formation of Flock House, LMCC, New
York, NY.
2010: The Anatomy of Melancholy, Occurrence, Montréal, Canada.
2009: Nomadographies, Robert Mann Gallery, New York, NY.
2007: Frontier, Galerie Adler, Frankfurt, Germany.
2007: Time Has Fallen Asleep, New York Public Library, NY.
2006: Fore Cast, White Box, New York, NY.
2006: Second Nature, Robert Mann Gallery, New York, NY.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
Working Knowledge, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY. Curated by Vera
Petukhova.
To See This Place: Awakening to Our Common Home, Museum of Contemporary
Religious Art (MOCRA), St. Louis, MO. Curated by Albey Miner and David Brinker.
2024
Come Isole / As Islands, Castel Belasi, Trentino, Italy. Curated by Stefano
Cagol.
To See This Place: Awakening to Our Common Home, Fairfield University Art
Museum, Fairfield, CT. Curated by Albey Miner and David Brinker.
Women Reframe the American Landscape, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum (WI) and
New Britain Museum of American Art (CT).
Current: Swerving the Apocalyptic Angle into Hope, Glenda Cinquegrana Art
Consulting, Milan, Italy. Curated by Stefano Cagol.
A Garden of Promise and Dissent, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum,
Ridgefield, CT. Curated by Amy Smith-Stewart.
2023
RE/SISTERS: Ecologies, Communities and Survival, Barbican Centre, London, UK.
Curated by Alona Pardo.
Women Reframe the American Landscape, Thomas Cole National Historic Site,
Catskill, NY. Curated by Nancy Siegel and Jennifer Carlquist.
Mining Photography: The Ecological Footprint of Image Production, Kunst Haus
Wien, Vienna, Austria. Curated by Sophie Haslinger.
2022
Reconnections: In Kinship with Nature, United Nations Headquarters, New York,
NY. Curated by Laziza Rakhimova.
Articulating Activism: Works from the Shelley and Donald Rubin Collection, The
8th Floor, New York, NY.
Konsum in der Kunst, Museum Biberach, Biberach, Germany. Curated by Dr. Judith
Bihr.
On the Line: Documents of Risk and Faith, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati,
OH. Curated by Makeda Best and Kevin Moore.
Mining Photography: The Ecological Footprint of Image Production, Museum für
Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany. Curated by Boaz Levin and Dr. Esther
Ruelfs.
Con los pies en la Tierra, CAAM – Atlantic Center of Modern Art, Las Palmas,
Canary Islands, Spain. Curated by Blanca de la Torre and Eric Sosa.
2021
Bioceno (Biocene) Biennial, Fundación Municipal Bienal de Cuenca, Cuenca,
Ecuador. Curated by Blanca
de la Torre.
Wandamba yalungka / Winds change direction, Performa Biennial, New York, NY.
Tip of the Iceberg, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, UK.
Plastic Heart: Surface All the Way Through, Art Museum at the University of
Toronto, Toronto, Canada. Curated by Synthetic Collective.
Gardenship and State, Museum London, Ontario, Canada. Curated by
Patrick Mahon.
Libro de Recetas para un Planeta “Otro” / Recipe Book for a Planet “Other”,
Cuenca Biennial, Ecuador. Curated
by Blanca de la Torre.
2020
Overview Effect, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Serbia.
ecofeminism(s), Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, NY. Curated by Monika
Fabijańska.
Performative Ecologies, Currents 826, Santa Fe, NM. Curated by Patricia Watts.
Researchers: Women Artists Inspired by Science, Des Moines Art Center, Des
Moines, IA. Curated by Laura Burkhalter.
The World to Come: Art in the Age of the Anthropocene, DePaul Art Museum,
Chicago, IL.
2019
Survival Architecture, Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA. Curated
by Randy Rosenberg.
Survival Architecture, Appleton Museum of Art, Ocala, FL. Curated by Randy
Rosenberg.
Go Figure: The Female Gaze, Hewitt Gallery of Art, New York, NY. Curated by
Hallie Cohen.
The World to Come, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI.
Fingers Crossed, ADN Platform, Barcelona, Spain. Curated by Sue Spaid and
Blanca de la Torre.
Climate Justice, Museum Arnhem, Arnhem, Netherlands.
Overflow, Gallatin Galleries, New York University, New York, NY.
Environmental Empathies, St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY. Curated by
Katherine Gressel.
2018
Indicators: Artists on Climate Change, Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY.
Curated by Nora Lawrence.
The World to Come, Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL. Curated by Kerry
Oliver-Smith.
Survival Architecture, Museum of Natural and Cultural History, Eugene, OR.
Curated by Randy Rosenberg.
Urban Field Station, The Arsenal Gallery, Central Park, New York, NY.
A Changing Climate, Bloomberg Hearst Gallery, New York, NY.
Land/Use, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD.
Sustainable Ecologies, The 8th Floor, New York, NY. Curated by Sara Reisman.
Water, OÖ Kulturquartier, Linz, Austria.
2017
Wanderlust, University at Buffalo Art Galleries, Buffalo, NY. Curated by Rachel
Adams.
Wanderlust 2, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA.
From Outrage to Action, NYU Gallatin Galleries, New York, NY. Curated by Keith
Miller.
Agrikultura, Malmö Public Art, Malmö, Sweden. Curated by Amanda McDonald
Crowley and Marek Walczak.
2016
Radical Seafaring, Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, NY. Curated by Andrea Grover.
Polar Lab, Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK. Curated by Julie Decker.
Survival Architecture and the Art of Resilience, Artworks for Change. Curated
by Randy Rosenberg.
Extracted, USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL. Curated by Megan Voeller.
Scarcity and Supply, Nanjing International Art Exhibition, Nanjing, China.
Curated by Nathalie Boseul Shin.
2015
Collective Actions, SECCA (Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art),
Winston-Salem, NC.
WetLand, Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia, PA.
Consumed, University Art Museum, California State University Long Beach, CA.
2014
Artisterium, State Museum of Literature, Tbilisi, Georgia. Curated by Magda
Guruli and Lydia Matthews.
Crossing Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum, NY. Curated by Eugenie Tsai and Rujeko
Hockley.
Beyond Limits, San Diego Art Institute, CA. Curated by Ginger Shulick Porcella
and Denise Carvalho.
Falsework, Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto, Canada.
It Should Always Be This Way, CAFKA Biennial, Canada.
A Common Space, The Kitchen, New York, NY. Whitney ISP Exhibition.
Distant Images, Local Positions, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York,
NY. Curated by Wafaa Bilal.
2013
Silent Beaches: New York’s Forgotten Waterfront, St. John’s University, Queens,
NY. Curated by Elizabeth Albert.
System ECOnomies, Boston University Art Galleries, Boston, MA. Curated by Lynne
Cooney and Dana Clancy.
From Process to Progress: Mary Mattingly and Michael Cataldi, Bronx River Art
Center, Bronx, NY.
2012
Common Interests, Rowan University Art Gallery, NJ. Curated by Sara Reisman.
Broken Desert – Land and Sea, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ.
Curated by Lauren Rabb.
Camp Out: Finding Home in an Unstable World, Laumeier Sculpture Park, St.
Louis, MO.
Streams of Consciousness, Salina Art Center, KS.
Surface Tension, Eyebeam Center for Art + Technology, NY.
Resilience and Resistance, Bennington College, VT.
Under Cover, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD.
2011
The Social Landscape, Lianzhou Foto, Lianzhou, China.
Labour of Love, Arko Art Center, Seoul, South Korea. Curated by Nathalie Boseul
Shin.
Temporary Structures, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA.
Imagine Earth, Seoul Art Center, South Korea.
On the Road, Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA.
2010
Dans l’archipel du Waterpod, Occurrence Gallery, Montréal, Canada.
The Nomadic Studio, DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL.
Condensations of the Social, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY. Curated by Sara
Reisman.
Global/National: The Order of Chaos, Exit Art, New York, NY.
Precious Cargo, UB Art Galleries, Buffalo, NY. Curated by Paul Sargent.
2009
Au Féminin, Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris, France.
Trouble in Paradise, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ.
Water, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands.
Water – Currents, Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece.
Appropriated Landscape, DIFC, Dubai, UAE.
Prix Pictet: Water, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France.
2008
Trouble in Paradise: Examining Discord Between Nature and Society, Tucson
Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ.
Au Féminin, Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris, France.
2007
Time Has Fallen Asleep, New York Public Library, New York, NY.
2006
Ecotopia, International Center of Photography (ICP), New York, NY. Co-edited by
Brian Wallis, Edward Earle, Christopher Phillips, and Carol Squires.
Fore Cast, White Box, New York, NY.
SELECTED PRESS AND PUBLICATIONS
2025
Alexandra M. Thomas, “An Exhibition that Looks to the Bronx for Inspiration,”
Hyperallergic, May 2025
Kendra Wilson, “Night Gardens: Floral Dreams by Artist Mary Mattingly,”
Gardenista, January 24, 2025.
Vince Aletti, review of Night Gardens at Robert Mann Gallery, The New Yorker,
February 25, 2025.
John Haber, “Weegee, Jeff Brouws, and Mary Mattingly,” HaberArts, December
2024.HaberArts
2024
Luiz Sérgio de Oliveira, “Mary Mattingly,” arte :lugar :cidade (Brazil), 2024.
“Mary Mattingly: Night Gardens,” MUSEE Magazine, January 9, 2025.
“Mary Mattingly: Night Gardens,” dreamideamachine ART VIEW, 2024.
“Mary Mattingly: Night Gardens,” All About Photo, 2024.
2023
Jan Garden Castro, “Repetition & Endurance,” Sculpture Magazine,
November/December 2023.
Chelsea Chan, “Mary Mattingly’s Eco-Conscious Activism – Imagined Futures in
Bloom,” Jejune Magazine, 2023.
Shannon Lee, “A Trickle in Time: Mary Mattingly’s Watery Manifesto for
Collective Futures,” MOLD Magazine, 2023.
Beryl J. Korotkin, “Socrates Sculpture Park,” The Brooklyn Rail, October 2023.
2022
Zoë Lescaze, “How Should Art Reckon with Climate Change?” T: The New York Times
Style Magazine, April 2022.
Valeria Ricci, “21 Questions with Artist Mary Mattingly,” Curbed NY, 2022.
Piermario De Angelis, “Geology and Climate Justice in Mary Mattingly’s Images,”
Juliet Art Magazine (Italy), 2022.
2021
Caroline Corbetta, “Rebecca Mendes, Agnes Denes, and Mary Mattingly,” Domus
(Italy), 2021.
Julie Reiss, “Public Water,” The Brooklyn Rail, February 2021.
Jane Englefield, “Watershed Core… filters rainwater in New York,” Dezeen,
October 2021.
Jane Levere, “Public Water… New York’s Drinking Water System in Miniature,”
Metropolis, March 2021.
Jillian Russo, “Wandamba yalungka.../Winds change direction...,” Hyperallergic,
November 2021.
Charlotte Kent, “Pipelines and Permafrost,” The Brooklyn Rail, October 2021.
Louis Bury, “Pipelines and Permafrost,” Hyperallergic, October 2021.
2020
Sheila Wickouski, “ecofeminism(s) Connects Feminism, Art and
Eco-Consciousness,” Ms. Magazine, October 2020.
Linda Weintraub, “ecofeminism(s) at Thomas Erben Gallery,” Flash Art, 2020.
Alex A. Jones, “ecofeminism(s),” The Brooklyn Rail, 2020.
“Mary Mattingly is the Brooklyn Public Library’s Artist in Residence,”
Artforum, February 2020.
Peter Libbey, “Mary Mattingly Named Brooklyn Public Library’s Artist in
Residence,” The New York Times, February 2020.
2019
Judith H. Dobrzynski, “Tired of Model Ships? Try a Priceless Turner,” Wall
Street Journal, February 2019.
Tess Gruenberg, “The Future of Food,” Dazed, October 2019.
“Mystic Seaport Museum to Open New Exhibition,” Norwich Bulletin, 2019.
Alison Dell and Mary Mattingly, “Collaborating with Nature: Public Art &
the Environment,” Public Art Dialogue, 2019.
“Mary Mattingly: Material Supply Chains and Eco-Traumas,” The Brooklyn Rail,
October 2019.
Astrid Schoenhagen, “Wearable Homes,” Wohnen +/- Ausstellen (Germany), 2019.
Baya Bellanger, “Regard sur l’architecture” (film feature), 2019.
Louis Bury, “At Union Studio, Artists Engage in Serious Play Around Notions of
Ecology,” Hyperallergic, September 2019.
2018
Ilana Novick, “Taking Apart the War Machine to See What’s Inside,”
Hyperallergic, May 2018.
Zoë Lescaze, “12 Artists on Climate Change,” The New York Times, October 2018.
Jillian Steinhauer, “Mary Mattingly,” The New York Times, October 2018.
Louis Bury, “The Ghosts of Our Future Climate at Storm King,” Hyperallergic,
October 2018.
Andrea K. Scott, “Outdoor Artworks Tackle Environmental Issues, at Storm King,”
The New Yorker, July 2018.
Nadja Sayej, “Artists on Climate Change: The Exhibition Tackling a Global
Crisis,” The Guardian, July 2018.
Jen Carlson, “Storm King’s Sprawling New Exhibit Explores Climate Change,”
Gothamist, May 2018.
Patrick Rogers, “In Upstate New York, a Summer of Climate Change Art,”
NRDC.org, 2018.
2017
Daniel McDermon, “Storm King Show to Focus on Climate Change in 2018,” The New
York Times, 2017.
Coverage of Swale in New York Post, PSFK, The Atlantic, Hyperallergic, ABC
News, New York 1, Huffington Post, Bloomberg News, Conde Nast, Curbed, The
Verge, Time Out New York, New York Times, Surface Magazine, BBC World, CNN
Going Green, Vice, CBS, National Public Radio, Slate, 2017.
2016
Michael McCanne, “Movable Feast: Mary Mattingly's Floating Garden,” Art in
America, 2016.
Susan Delson, “An Artist Floats an Edible Forest,” The Wall Street Journal,
2016.
“This Floating Food Forest Barge Is Nourishing Communities for Free,”
Huffington Post, 2016.
Coverage of Swale in Bronx12, NY1, NBC, CBS, BBC, 2016.
Imogen Rowland, “The Floating Forest,” Ronda, 2016.
Kristine Wong, “Swale,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2016.
Ryan Steadman, “Don't Be Surprised to See a Floating Garden in NYC's Harbor,”
New York Observer, 2016.
Wendy Joan Biddlecombe, “Floating Food Forest to Move Through the NY Harbor,”
Metro New York, 2016.
Eillie Anzilotto, “An Urban Food Forest Takes to the Waterways,” The Atlantic,
2016.
Erin Blakemore, “New York's Newest Urban Farm Floats,” The Smithsonian, 2016.
2015
Wilson Tarbox, “The Story of an Installation in a Polluted River and Its
Removal,” Hyperallergic, 2015.
Allison Meier, “Mobile Food Forest to Float the NYC Waterways in Spring 2016,”
Hyperallergic, 2015.
Michael Morain, “Rushing River Delays Plans for Water Works Foot-Bridge,” The
Des Moines Register, 2015.
Holland Cotter, “The Havana Biennial is in Full Throttle,” The New York Times,
2015.
Leslie Kaufman, “WetLand,” Sculpture Magazine, 2015.
Michael Morain, “A Ripple Effect,” Des Moines Register, 2015
2014
Ben Brantley, “Fringe Festival, WetLand Philadelphia,” The New York Times,
August 2014.
“WetLand,” Philadelphia Weekly, August 2014.
“WetLand,” Philly Magazine, August 2014.
Holland Cotter, “Common Spaces,” The New York Times, September 2014.
Martha Schwendener, “A Critic's Picks in Brooklyn, An Embattled Utopia,” The
New York Times, October 2014.
Sabrina DeTurk, “Distant Images, Local Positions,” Afterimage, Fall 2014.
Alison Schweichler, “Many Groups Are Working to Effect Positive Change,” The
Buffalo News, November 2014.
Colin Dabkowski, “Performing Economies,” The Buffalo News, October 2014.
Jack Foran, “Performing Economies Colloquium,” ArtVoice, October 2014.
“Flock House Omaha: A Citywide Workshop,” NPR, October 2014.
“Flock House Sets Up in Old Market and North Omaha,” KWTV Action 3 News,
October 2014.
2013
Kareem Estefan, “Mary Mattingly,” Art in America, March 2013.
Joanna Ruth Epstein, “House and Universe,” ArtNews, March 2013.
Colby Chamberlain, “Mary Mattingly,” Artforum, April 2013.
Vince Aletti, “Mary Mattingly,” The New Yorker, April 2013.
Martha Schwendener, “Mary Mattingly: House and Universe,” The New York Times,
March 2013.
“The Lookout: Mary Mattingly,” Art in America, March 2013.
Susan Silas, “A Bag Lady By Any Other Name,” Hyperallergic, April 2013.
David A. Willis, “At Home in the World,” ArtSlant, March 2013.
Noor Brara, “The Weight of Mary Mattingly’s World,” Interview Magazine, March
2013.
Greg Lindquist, “The Life of Objects,” The Brooklyn Rail, April 2013.
“New Pier 42 Project Hooks People with Art and Fishing,” The Villager, June
2013.
“Paths to Pier 42,” Urban Omnibus, June 2013.
Skyler Reid, “From Trash to Treasure,” Mott Haven Herald, July 2013.
2012
Margaret Regan, “Scorched Earth,” Tucson Weekly, October 2012.
Miguel Miranda, “The Extremophile,” China Business News, November 2012.
Marika B. Constantino, “Shelter Me,” Philippine Star, October 2012.
Filipina Lippi, “Wearable and Portable Architecture,” The Manila Bulletin,
October 2012.
Tito Genova Valiente, “Wearing Moving Art: Mary Mattingly’s Social Vision,”
Business Mirror, November 2012.
“US Cultural Ambassador to Initiate Public Art Project,” The Manila Times,
October 2012.
Hilary Howard, “Serious Artists Plan Whimsy in the Sand,” The New York Times,
August 2012.
Anne Mancuso, “Photography Shows and Discussions in the Parks,” The New York
Times, July 2012.
Nick Miller, “Flock Houses Land in New York’s Public Spaces,” The Architect’s
Newspaper, July 2012.
Martha Schwendener, “Contempo Boat Artists Float Their Ideas,” The Village
Voice, July 2012.
Wendy Vogel, “Nature,” The Brooklyn Rail, September 2012.
Greg Lindquist, “Is Newness Still New?” The Brooklyn Rail, October 2012.
“Events: The Flock House Project,” CBS News, July 2012.
“Join Artist Mary Mattingly’s Sustainable Commune,” Art + Auction, August 2012.
Laura Elizabeth Barone, “Camp Out: Finding Home in an Unstable World,”
Temporary Art Review, November 2012.
Diane Toroian Keaggy, “Give Me Shelter: Laumeier's 'Camp Out' Looks at What
Makes Home,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 2012.
Sheilah Kast, “Under Cover: Maryland Morning,” WYPR Radio, October 2012.
“Under Cover,” Metropolis Magazine, October 2012.
Andrea Appleton, “Under Cover at MICA’s Decker Gallery,” Baltimore City Paper,
October 2012.
2011
Brian Boucher, “Team America: Artists as Cultural Ambassadors,” Art in America,
June 2011.
Emily Costello, “deCordova Group Show Redefines Architecture,” Lincoln Journal
Star, July 2011.
Chris Bergeron, “deCordova Exhibit Encourages Visitors to Interact With Art,”
The Milford Daily News, July 2011.
Claire Ross, “The Investigation, Constitution, and Formation of Flock House,”
Urban Omnibus, August 2011.
Louise Risk, “The Island is Also the Origin,” Waikato Times, May 2011.
Lynn Freeman, interview with Mary Mattingly, Radio New Zealand, May 2011.
“Big Ideas in Art and Culture,” CAFKA TV, June 2011.
Shane Danaher, “Interview with Mary Mattingly,” Rough Copy, June 2011.
Eva Díaz, “Dome Culture in the Twenty-first Century,” Grey Room, Spring 2011.
Kathryn Yusoff, “Climate Change and the Imagination,” WIREs Climate Change,
Summer 2011.
Nadine Comeau, “Mary Mattingly,” Dialect Magazine, July 2011.
2010
Claire Barliant, “Mary Mattingly: Safe,” Icon Magazine, March 2010.
“Collective Intelligence,” Ovation TV, May 2010.
“Islands,” Cabinet Magazine, June 2010.
Luigi Amara, “For an Unsustainable Art,” Fahrenheit, July 2010.
Martha Schwendener, “Condensations of the Social,” The Village Voice, July
2010.
“A Utopian Barge,” Colors Magazine, August 2010.
Stephen Brown, “Spend a Night Sleeping With an Artist,” The Brooklyn Paper,
September 2010.
2009
Robin Michals, “Facing the Meltdown,” Afterimage, November 2009.
“20 in 10: Ones to Watch,” Brooklyn Paper, December 2009.
Allison Lind, “Air Ship Air City: Sustainable Home Will Float in the Clouds,”
Yahoo! News, August 2009.
Melena Ryzik, “The Waterpod Artist Heads for the Roof,” The New York Times,
September 2009.
Stephen Brown, “Is This Brooklyn's Craziest Crib?” The Brooklyn Paper, August
2009.
“Waterpod Project,” Sculpture Magazine, July 2009.
Christopher Turner, “A Floating Island of Sustainability,” Nature Magazine,
June 2009.
“Waterpod,” Sunday Times Style (London), June 2009.
“Waterpod Readies for Launch,” Gothamist, May 2009.
Alyssa Danigelis, “The Waterpod Project,” Discovery News, May 2009.
Tara Lynn Wagner, “Waterpod Brings Green Sea Living to Staten Island,” NY1
News, May 2009.
Brian Williams, “Mary Mattingly on the Waterpod,” MSNBC, May 2009.
Steven Kurutz, “A Fluid Definition of Self Sufficiency,” The New York Times,
June 2009.
Karen Rosenberg, “Nomadographies,” The New York Times, July 2009.
Vince Aletti, “Mary Mattingly,” The New Yorker, July 2009.
“Nomadographies,” Datensklaven, August 2009.
Lauren O’Neill-Butler, “500 Words: Mary Mattingly,” Artforum, July 2009.
“Mary Mattingly: Nomadographies,” Actuo Photo, July 2009.
2006–2008
Features and reviews in Sculpture Magazine, ICP/Steidl’s Ecotopia, Nature
Magazine, Tucson Museum of Art, Paris Photo, and international press covering
Waterpod, Swale, and Nomadographies.
AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2023: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
2023: Artist-in-Residence, KinoSaito Art Center, Verplanck, NY
2022–2024: Civic Engagement Fellowship, Pratt Institute
2020: Surf Point Foundation Residency, ME
2020: Winter Workspace Residency, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY
2020: Artist-in-Residence, Brooklyn Public Library
2019: Fellowship, CU Art Museum, Boulder, CO
2019: SEED Lab Residency, Anchorage Museum
2018: BRIC Arts 40th Anniversary Artist Award
2018: Rauschenberg Residency, Captiva Island, FL
2017: Terra Foundation Residency, Giverny, France
2016: Watermill Center Residency
2015: A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art
2015: LMCC President’s Award for Visual Arts
2014: Light Work Residency
2013: Knight Foundation Arts Grant
2012: Eyebeam Fellowship
2012: smARTpower Residency (U.S. State Dept.)
2011: Harpo Foundation Grant
2011: Jerome Foundation Travel Grant
2011: NYFA Fellowship in Sculpture
2011: Art Omi Residency
2010: Art Matters Grant
2010: Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio Program
2008: NYU Artist-in-Residence
2008: LMCC Workspace Residency
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Art Omi, Ghent, NY
Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY
Cleveland Clinic Art Collection, Cleveland, OH
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA
DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL
Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
Deutsche Bank Art Collection, Frankfurt, Germany
Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection
Friends of Photography, New York, NY
International Center of Photography (ICP), New York, NY
Light Work, Syracuse, NY
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana, Havana, Cuba
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), New York, NY
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Richard J. Massey Foundation for Arts and Sciences, New York, NY
Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Roswell Museum of Art, Roswell, NM
Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
"All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges, 1981-1983
2015 A Blade of Grass Fellow Mary Mattingly created Swale, a floating food forest that invites the public to cultivate fresh food as it travels through NYC harbors, acting as a setting for conversations about food and public policy.
Cobalt
The work of Mary Mattingly suggests an undeniable suspension of disbelief, a leap of some brand of faith, but with eyes open. Her work and ideas are striking, and precipitate a change in consciousness… to foresee a place that doesn’t pretend to be utopia, but instead offers an alternative way of being, of thinking that is dependent on the stark reality of our choices made or unmade, unadorned. What are we willing to sacrifice in the process to ultimately secure a sustainable way of life and respectful co-existence?
During her fellowship at the University of Michigan, Mattingly traveled to the Upper Peninsula, exploring its terrain and cobalt mines. She thrifted for glassware and other goods, visited trash sites, met with metal workers, and airplane mechanics. She engaged with students at U-M from diverse departments collecting personal objects for a sacred burial on the Diag, a related project to her installation in the gallery. Each workshop included the ritual of tea, storytelling, drawing, but also 3D imaging which became part of her digital archives. There was never any sense that she placed more value on one object or another, or one ritual, but rather, and all became part of a bundle.
In preparation for her exhibition, the cumulative cobalt hue of her studio at U-M Stamps School which was comprised of her forgings…blue glass, blue powder, blue fabrics, blue pipes, was both infatuating and intoxicating. Scales and diagrams, photographs taken on location, and a series of carefully orchestrated suspensions and pulleys all seemed to potentially lead us to some peculiar and certain destination, a Eureka moment of an exalted explorer, a promise. Perhaps the true brilliance was the way everything seemingly converged, only to reveal loose ends, connections and disconnections, a network of tangents, a mesh of turns, the various routes of mazes. The work Mary Mattingly creates can only exist because, although she fully recognizes the impossibility of things, she insists on residing in the realm of the possible.
—Amanda Krugliac, Curator at U-M Institute for the Humanities
Wetland
Wetland was designed as a mobile, public space that functions both as an art residency and ecological installation. Repurposed materials make sustainable systems like rainwater collection and purification, greywater filtration, composting setups, and vegetable gardens as well as a bee hive and chicken coop, further emphasizing ecological balance. - Knight Foundation
Mary Mattingly Owns Up
Do objects come with responsibility? In this film, Mary Mattingly transforms personal belongings into absurd sculptural forms that she later incorporates into photographs and performative actions. Experimenting with living in her Greenpoint studio space, Mattingly is determined to live with just the bare essentials.
Over several months, she undertakes a process of recording every object she owns and tracing the history of each of her belongings—how it came into her life, its distribution via complex global supply chains, as well as where the raw materials for its manufacture was sourced—before uploading a digital version of each object to her website OWN-IT.US for others to access. Throughout this process, she takes stock of the environmental and societal impact of her personal consumption.
Mattingly aggregates all of her personal belongings into boulder-like sculptural bundles, held together with rope, so that she is able to roll and drag them. She’s photographed walking the sculpture Fill (Obstruct) (2013) across the Bayonne Bridge, from Staten Island to New Jersey, and to the Port of New York New Jersey—symbolically returning her personal belongings to the place where they entered the East Coast.
-Art21
Triple Island
“Triple Island has a very specific aesthetic intention,” says Mattingly, “and it is to imagine a world with leftover materials and how you would build and what it would look like.” Through summer heat and winter cold, the artist and several intrepid volunteers live in the sculpture, collecting rain for water, harnessing solar energy for power, and harvesting a garden for food. Residents’ motives for participating vary widely; for artist Ivan Gilbert, Triple Island offers a chance to gain “a few more degrees of relative freedom from giant inhuman institutions.” Partnering with a coalition of advocacy organizations, such as the Hester Street Collaborative and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Mattingly’s project is less an experiment in individualistic self-sufficiency as it is in the communal sharing of local resources. - Art21
The Waterpod Project
The Waterpod was a project that combined art, sustainability, and activism in a floating, self-sufficient, mobile habitat designed to explore environmental issues and alternative ways of living. The project was an experimental living space built on a barge, designed to function as a sustainable ecosystem with a focus on water conservation and urban resilience.
The Waterpod included a range of eco-friendly systems, including rainwater collection, renewable energy sources, and sustainable farming practices. It housed artists who lived aboard and engaged in environmental education, public programming, and artistic collaborations. The project was not only a living space but also a platform for raising awareness about climate change, sustainability, and the impact of human activity on natural resources, particularly water.
Located in New York City, The Waterpod served as both a symbol of resilience in the face of rising sea levels and a practical demonstration of how alternative, water-based living could be integrated into urban environments. It was a reflection on the future of cities in the context of climate change and a call to action for sustainable living practices. The project highlighted the importance of water management, community-building, and the need for creative solutions to environmental challenges.