Shanti Escalante-De Mattei

Shanti Escalante-De Mattei joined ARTnews as junior staff writer this past June. She is a recent graduate of Gallatin, the New York University School of Individualized Study, where she concentrated on anthropology and environmental humanities. While at Gallatin Shanti received numerous awards and grants for her research on how the elite shape agricultural landscapes, including the Newington-Cropsey Fellowship, the Horn Family Fund for Environmental Research, and the Dean’s Award for Summer Research. She was editor-in-chief of her school’s research journal, and wrote a bimonthly column on artists working on themes concerning the Anthropocene era for Embodied, the NYU arts and culture magazine. After departing academia, she interned at Interview magazine and Triple Canopy before writing for publications like Believer Magazine, i-D, the Drunken Canal, Heavy Traffic, Bitch Media, and others. She is currently an Ann Friedman Fellow. Shanti’s beat at ARTnews covers NFTs, tech, and everything else.