“Fog That They Are Lost In,” photograph by Mallory Shotwell from a project exploring breast cancer experience and medical uncertainty.
Mallory Shotwell is an independent curator, interdisciplinary artist, and studio manager for visual artists based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her work brings together research-driven exhibitions, artist advocacy, studio systems, and interdisciplinary art practice to examine care, labor, embodiment, and the institutional conditions of cultural work.
Mallory Shotwell is an independent curator, studio manager for visual artists, and interdisciplinary artist based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. With a background in artist-run organizations and nonprofit arts leadership, she develops research-driven exhibitions and public programs while providing strategic studio management support for mid-career visual artists and arts organizations.
Shotwell is the founder and former director of Cultivate, an artist-run organization in Grand Rapids, where she led exhibitions, educational programming, and community partnerships serving nearly 10,000 students and more than 1,000 artists. Her work brings together curatorial vision, artist advocacy, and practical knowledge of the institutional systems that shape contemporary art careers.
As an independent curator, Shotwell develops collaborative exhibitions, public programs, and research initiatives centered on care, labor, embodiment, and the conditions under which cultural work is produced. Her projects, including It Takes a Village and Embodied Homescapes, foreground interdisciplinary exchange, public engagement, and the operational realities of exhibition-making within nonprofit, civic, and artist-run contexts.
As a studio manager for visual artists, she supports mid-career artists with the professional and operational infrastructure of their practices. Her services include artist professional materials, studio systems, project timelines, exhibition and residency applications, juried opportunities, grant submissions, communication, and institutional coordination. Her approach emphasizes clarity, reliability, and informed navigation of arts organizations, museums, galleries, residencies, and other professional opportunities.
Shotwell’s interdisciplinary studio practice across photography, text, and installation informs her curatorial and studio-management work. Grounded in lived experience and sustained inquiry, her practice attends to embodiment, care, cultural labor, and institutional critique. Across these interconnected roles, she works with artists and mission-driven arts organizations to develop exhibitions, programs, and sustainable professional practices.
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