Six visual artists, including Matt Black, Garrett Bradley, Jeremy Frey, Tonika Lewis Johnson, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, and Gala Porras-Kim, are among the 22 individuals honored with this year’s MacArthur Fellowship, as announced by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on October 8.
These fellows, nominated anonymously and selected by an independent committee, each receive an unrestricted $800,000 award distributed over five years. The MacArthur Foundation views this fellowship as a commitment to an individual’s creativity, insight, and potential, with no requirements for specific projects or accountability reports.
Since its inception in 1981, the foundation has granted this no-strings-attached fellowship to 1,153 recipients across disciplines such as art, writing, health policy, anthropology, music, science, and teaching.
Matt Black, a California photographer and member of Magnum Photos, specializes in black-and-white photography that captures the lived realities of economic inequality throughout America. Notably focused on rural communities in central California, his series The Dry Land (2014) highlights the impact of drought on migrant farmworkers. His ongoing projects explore mining and climate change within the Western U.S.
Garrett Bradley, an artist and filmmaker from Louisiana, engages in the realms of film, multi-channel video installations, and visual essays to weave together fact and fiction, probing themes of racial injustice and resilience. Her work often includes research and collaboration, melding archival content with contemporary narratives, exemplified in her installation America (2019) and the documentary Time (2020).
Jeremy Frey, a seventh-generation Passamaquoddy basketmaker, innovatively merges traditional Wabanaki weaving techniques with modern materials, creating a unique visual language that intertwines ancient practices with contemporary sculpture. His work is particularly relevant as climate change and invasive species threaten key materials like black ash, as he discussed in a 2024 interview with PBS.
In Chicago, Tonika Lewis Johnson is a photographer and social justice advocate working to highlight historical inequalities in urban infrastructure and resources. Her ongoing initiative, Folded Map Project, connects residential addresses from the city’s North and South Sides to illustrate the contrasts and shared experiences of these neighborhoods, which differ greatly in demographics. Her latest work, UnBlocked Englewood (2023–ongoing), aims to revitalize her childhood neighborhood by transforming home restoration into a public artwork.
Tuan Andrew Nguyen, a Saigon-based multidisciplinary artist, employs film, installation, and sculpture to address the lasting impacts of colonialism, violence, and displacement, drawing upon community narratives of resilience across Vietnam, Senegal, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and the US. His diverse projects range from single-channel films to complex multimedia installations, all grounded in storytelling to facilitate healing and connection.
Interdisciplinary artist Gala Porras-Kim explores the intricate relationships between cultural artifacts and the systems that influence their preservation. Her research-driven practice often critiques the disconnection of objects from their original contexts. At Made in LA 2016, she showcased unidentified items from the Fowler Museum alongside detailed paper works.
Other notable winners this year include cartographer Margaret Wickens Pearce, author Tommy Orange, and cultural anthropologist Ieva Jusiontyte.
Below is the complete list of the 2025 MacArthur Fellows:
Ángel F. Adames-Corraliza
Matt Black
Garrett Bradley
Heather Christian
Nabarun Dasgupta
Kristina Douglass
Kareem El-Badry
Jeremy Frey
Hahrie Han
Tonika Lewis Johnson
Ieva Jusionyte
Toby Kiers
Jason McLellan
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Tommy Orange
Margaret Wickens Pearce
Sébastien Philippe
Gala Porras-Kim
Teresa Puthussery
Craig Taborn
William Tarpeh
Lauren K. Williams
