DANIEL LANZILOTTA

Instagram: https://Instagram.com/daniellanzilotta

(203) 451-5286

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Bronx-born Daniel Lanzilotta is an award-winning, globally exhibiting environmental artist, activist, cultural storyteller, and lecturer who’s stood in the forefront of plastic pollution for more than 30 years. Working in a Bridgeport studio, Lanzilotta is not just making sculptures—he is cultivating a new form of ecological literacy, what he calls non-extractive art. With a welder’s eye and a philosopher’s instinct, Daniel forages detritus—plastic, copper, broom bristles, shoreline waste—and transmutes it into intricate totems of potential. In his hands, waste becomes memory, matter becomes myth, and pollution becomes pedagogy. His conviction is simple: nothing and no one is disposable.

EDUCATION

Carnegie Mellon University, B.F.A. Theater Production Design, 1984

New School for Social Research Restaurant School, Culinary Arts Professional Chefs Program, 1983

The Open Center, First Level Certification, Herbal Green Medicine

EXHIBITIONS (Partial List)

Human Impacts Institute and Eleventh Hour Art, Brooklyn, NY, Sept-Oct 2026 /Urban Environmental Health Lab Fellow

Contemporary Italian Diasporic Art, Calandra Italian American Institute, New, NY, March-August 2026/Curator: Rosa Berland

Foundation House Artist Residency, Greenwich, CT, January 2026 /Director: Grace Whittaker

Becoming Plastic Featured Artist, City Lights Gallery, Bridgeport, CT, November 2025/Curator: Suzanne Kachmar

Masks Group Show, City Lights Gallery, Bridgeport, CT, Sept 2025/Curator: Suzanne Kachmar

Latinissimo Bienniale Group Show, Read’s Artspace, Bridgeport, CT, September 2024/Curator: Yolanda Petrocelli

Orange Group Show, Loy Luo Space, Tribeca, New York City, November 2024/Curator: Loy Luo

Kindred Spirits Group Show, Athens Cultural Center, Athens, NY, June 2023/Curator: Becky Hart Curatorial assistant: Lynda Shenkman

Group Show, Read’s Artspace, Bridgeport, CN, November 2023/Curator Lauri MacLean

Tell the Truth Solo Show, Garner Art Center, Garnerville, NY, June 2021/Curator: Jonathan Shorr

Happy Consumer Winter Group Show, Garner Art Center, Garnerville, NY, Nov. 2020-21/Curator: Jonathan Shorr

Group Show, Kente Royal Gallery, Harlem, New York City, August 2020/Curator: Dodji Gbedemah

El Barrio Artspace Group Show, Harlem Art Walk, Harlem, New York City, October 2020/Curators: Olivia Beene and Arcadia Caraballo

Plastic Prima vera Solo Show, Artra Arts New York City, 2019/Curator: Gene Seidman

Solo Art Presentation/Interview, Festival Leggere e Scriverre, Vibo Valentina, Italy, Oct 2019/Curator and interviewer: Simeone Scaramozzino

LECTURES AND ACTIVISM (Partial List)

Urban Environmental Health Lab, 2026 Fellow

Daniel Lanzilotta Bronxnet Host (Corinne’s Picks), Artivation TV, August 2025 to present

Artist StoryShare,, Westport Library, Westport, Connecticut, June 2024

Climate Action Week, Harvard University, June 2024

Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, Javits Center, New York City, April 2024

BronxNet, Mental Health and You, Daniel Lanzilotta Guest, February 2025

Storyteller, Truth to Power Café Producer Jeremy Goldstein, Lincoln Center, October 2023

Bronx Talk/Climate Change, Daniel Lanzilotta Guest, August 2023

The Bronx Buzz, Danield Lanzilotta Guest, March 2023

Anthony Hayden Guest Interview, 2021

AWARDS AND HONORS (Partial List)

NYC Trash Academy Graduate, NYU Graduate Center, New York City, March 2025

Human Impacts Institute Creative Climate Award Winner, 2024

Certificate of Recognition for Volunteer Work, Bronx Volunteer Coalition, May 2018

Member, Bx 200 Artists, Bronx, New York, 2015

SKILLS

Environmental storytelling, art fundamentals, conceptualizing thematic narratives with non-extractable materials, innovation and problem solving, model making, jewelry making, lighting, electrical, carpentry, welder, set design, prop building, theatrical directing, improvisation, culinary arts instructor, elementary through university level teaching and lecturing, instructional design, public speaking, networking, TV host, interviewing, community arts advocacy, environmental change ideation, arts project management

EXPERIENCE (Partial List)

Co-Chair and Organizer, City Lights Gallery Opening Reception and Citywide Arts Trail, Bridgeport, Connecticut, May-November 2025

“Intersectionality: Art, Nature + Technology. A Panel Discussion.” Read’s Art Space, Bridgeport, Connecticut Moderator: Jacqueline Karaaslanian, February 2019

Artist-in-Residence, “Green Haiti,” Leogane, Haiti, Fall 2016

Teaching Artist at multiple New York and Connecticut Public Schools Elementary through College Level for more than 20 years

REFERENCES

Furnished Upon Request