Mike Mandel (b. 1950) and Chantal Zakari (b. 1968) are interdisciplinary artists whose collaborative practice uses photography, found imagery, archives, artist books and public interventions to examine how images shape cultural and political narratives. Mandel studied at San Fernando Valley State College and earned his M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute. Zakari, a Turkish-Levantine artist and designer, received her B.F.A. and M.F.A. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is Associate Dean of Curriculum and Instruction, Professor of the Practice, School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University.
Working together since the 1990s, Mandel and Zakari combine documentary research with appropriation, design and personal experience. Through their independent press, Eighteen Publications, they have made the artist book central to their practice, using inexpensive and widely distributable forms to bring art and social commentary beyond traditional museum and gallery settings.