Six visual artists — Matt Black, Garrett Bradley, Jeremy Frey, Tonika Lewis Johnson, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, and Gala Porras-Kim — are among the 22 recipients of this year’s MacArthur Fellowship, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced today, October 8. Anonymously nominated and selected by an independent committee, the fellows each receive an unrestricted financial award of $800,000, issued in equal installments over the next five years. The MacArthur Foundation describes the prize as an “investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential,” and does not require fellows to submit specific projects or reports for evaluation. Since 1981, the foundation has awarded the no-strings-attached fellowship to 1,153 people spanning the fields of art, writing, health policy, anthropological research, musical performance, science, teaching, entrepreneurship, and others.California-based photographer and Magnum Photos member Matt Black uses black-and-white imagery to document the daily lived experiences of economic inequity across the United States. Much of his work tends to focus on rural communities in central California, as in his series The Dry Land (2014), which chronicled the effects of prolonged drought on the area’s migrant farmworkers. Other projects have involved extensive travel throughout the country’s impoverished populations, from Buffalo, New York, to El Paso, Texas. Black is currently pursuing a new body of work exploring mining and climate change in the Western US. Louisiana artist and filmmaker Garrett Bradley’s work across film, multi-channel video installation, photography, and visual essay blends fact and fiction to explore themes of racial oppression, individual resilience, and public memory. Rooted in research and collaboration, her practice frequently intertwines archival materials with present-day media to present subjects’ stories from an intimate point of view, as seen in her experimental installation America (2019) and the feature-length documentary Time (2020).Seventh-generation Passamaquoddy basketmaker Jeremy Frey combines ancestral Wabanaki weaving techniques with new forms and materials to forge a distinctly unique visual language that combines ancient traditions and contemporary sculpture. Grounded in traditional foraging practices, his work is especially timely as climate change and invasive species threaten basketry materials like black ash, according to the artist’s 2024 interview with PBS. “As what I’m doing as an artist peaks, I’m going to lose the material to actually do it,” Frey said.Detail of Jeremy Frey, “Ghost Bear” (2018), ash, sweetgrass, moose antler, and dye (photo Julie Schneider/Hyperallergic)Based in Chicago, Tonika Lewis Johnson is a photographer and social justice artist highlighting the historical disparities in the city’s infrastructure and community resources. Her ongoing Folded Map Project pairs corresponding residential addresses on Chicago’s North and South Sides to expose the stark differences and commonalities between life in the two neighborhoods, the former mostly White and the latter predominantly Black. Her most recent project, UnBlocked Englewood (2023–ongoing), seeks to revitalize the neighborhood where she grew up by reenvisioning home restoration as a public art initiative. Saigon-based multidisciplinary artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen uses film, installation, and sculpture to confront the intergenerational traumas of colonial violence, displacement, and war, tapping into community histories of resiliency and healing that span Vietnam, Senegal, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and the US. His projects range from single-channel videos to multimedia installations and are grounded in narrative storytelling as a way to promote healing and connection.The poetic, research-based practice of interdisciplinary artist Gala Porras-Kim probes questions about the layered relationships between cultural artifacts and the institutional frameworks that dominate their preservation and display. Her work often involves critiques of objects and forms of knowledge that are separated from their original contexts. For Made in LA 2016, Porras-Kim presented unidentifiable collection items from the Fowler Museum alongside intricate works on paper.This year’s winners also include cartographer Margaret Wickens Pearce, fiction writer Tommy Orange, and cultural anthropologist Ieva Jusiontyte. A complete list of 2025 MacArthur Fellows can be found below.Ángel F. Adames-CorralizaMatt BlackGarrett BradleyHeather ChristianNabarun DasguptaKristina DouglassKareem El-BadryJeremy FreyHahrie HanTonika Lewis JohnsonIeva JusionyteToby KiersJason McLellanTuan Andrew NguyenTommy OrangeMargaret Wickens PearceSébastien PhilippeGala Porras-KimTeresa PuthusseryCraig TabornWilliam TarpehLauren K. Williams