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Project Description:
VOTE! is a sculpture of four voting booths with three flamingos casting their votes. Located at the newly constructed Supervisor of Elections building—which collects and counts votes and educates the public about the voting process—the sculpture reveals what goes on inside the building and makes the voting experience more relatable.
Even though VOTE! presents a lighthearted image with flamingos, it illustrates the humanity of voting, where each individual gets to express what is in their heart and mind. While all three flamingos stand in identical voting booths, they are voting in their unique ways—one flamingo has its head down, deep in thought, while the other two are sizing each other up or trying to see who the other one is voting for. The brightly colored flamingos of VOTE! are designed to appeal to people of all ages, serving as a whimsical and educational landmark for the Elections building.
The sculpture, by artist Matthew Mazzotta, was commissioned by Palm Beach County. He was inspired by the diverse natural habitats Florida provides for all its wildlife. These oversized flamingos are a reminder that we share this place with the rich life that also calls it home.
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About Matthew:
Matthew Mazzotta grew up in rural Northern New York, where he melted candles with a blowtorch onto street curbs, old loading docks, and handrails to convert them into skateboarding surfaces. He and a group of skateboarders from nearby towns would share knowledge of different local spots they had created and spent their days outside.
He now works at the intersection of art, activism, and urbanism, focusing on the power of the built environment to shape our relationships and experiences. His public art projects have received international art and architecture awards such as the Architizer A+ Award, Azure’s AZ Award, CODAawards, WAN Award, and Americans for the Arts, and he received the "Architecture Project of the Year" by the Dezeen Awards at the Tate Modern in London. His work has been featured on CNN, BBC, NPR, The Colbert Report, The Huffington Post, and the Discovery Channel, and has been published in numerous books, journals, and magazines, including Science Magazine, Wired Magazine, and Interior Design Magazine. He has exhibited his work at the Cooper Hewitt-Smithsonian Design Museum in NYC and presented at the Asia Society NYC conference in partnership with UNESCO and the United Nations' 75th Anniversary conference, moderated by Rem Koolhaas.
Matthew received his BFA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his Master of Science degree 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.
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