Mari Spirito

Mari Spirito is executive director and curator of Protocinema, a cross-cultural, ambulatory art organization commissioning and presenting exhibitions and public programs in Istanbul and New York, which she founded in 2011. In 2023 she co-curated Art, Ancestors, Ghosts & The Dead convening on attitudes towards death across cultures; curated The Myth of Normal, A Celebration of Authentic Expression, a group exhibition at MassArt Art Museum, Boston, forthcoming in October; and completed Contemplative Care Foundations Program, New York Zen Center. In 2020, she developed and presented a new exhibition model A Few in Many Places, a multi-city group exhibition installed in Beirut, Istanbul, Berlin, Montreal and Philadelphia, that maintains a foot in physical real-life in each community, while utilizing far-reaching digital support structures, thoughtfully local and globally interconnected. In 2021, this format took place in Seoul, Bangkok, Istanbul, New York, Santurce and Guatemala City. These interventions use sustainable exhibition-making models reducing exploitation (of natural resources, labor and knowledge) and consumption (no shipping or flying). In 2015 she initiated the Protocinema Emerging Curator Series Mentorship program, which partnered with The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, New York, in 2022. From 2013 to 2018 she programmed the Conversations program for both Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach. Spirito served as international advisory committee member for the inaugural High Line Plinth Commissions, New York, 2017; curator/director of Alt Art Space, Bomonti, Istanbul, 2015–17; advisor to the second Mardin Biennial, Turkey, 2012; and director of 303 Gallery New York from 2000–12. She is on the Board of Participant Inc, New York, and holds a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston.