Mallory Kimmel (b. 1995, Olney, MD) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and writer who makes socially engaged work addressing and eradicating exclusionary design practices in the built environment to make rest accessible to all. Her works have been exhibited in The U.S. State Department Inaugural Gallery; The University of Maryland; George Mason University; California College of the Arts; The Umbrella Art Fair; The Peale Museum; and Minnesota Street Projects. Kimmel’s writing has been published by E-flux; The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum; and BmoreArt Magazine. She has curated exhibitions collaboratively with The Phillips Collection; The Community College of Baltimore County; George Mason University; and Aggregate Space Gallery. She founded Do Less Press, a small press dedicated to artist literature on power, labor, rest, and healing. She teaches design at Lehigh University and serves on the Design Committee for the College Art Association. Her work was selected for residencies with The Nicholson Project; The Social Studies Residency; and the Outreach Artist Residency in the Arctic Circle, funded by the National Science Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
My research focus is how societal values shape art, design, and the built environment. I study human interactions with designed spaces to redistribute power and create a more just world.
My practice spans furniture, performance, object making, writing, and curation to disrupt exploitative systems and foster spaces for rest, connection, and healing. I work to redact hostile design to shape our environments for collective access. My work choreographs relaxation and cultivates trust. Communal Rest—a twenty-two-foot macro-furniture installation of five chaise loungers radiating from a central wooden ring—invites strangers to gather in self-led restful activity. These third spaces counter the isolating structures of late capitalism, framing rest not as luxury but as a human right.
I critique over-optimization in design through satirical performances such as Hands-Free Spoon, a suspended glass apparatus that delivers soup via gravity-fed straws. These works question hyper-efficiency and model togetherness through embodied connection.
My teaching and research practices challenge exclusionary design and labor practices, proposing inventions that support equitable access to leisure. I create tools that entitle the public to comfort-based privilege, inviting rest as a form of resistance.
Upcoming Exhibition
Our annual group exhibition debuts the work of distinguished 2025–2027 fellows. In this presentation of new.now., each artist’s work conveys a sense of adaptability; some take on an active exercise in troubleshooting.…
