MacArthur Foundation on Wednesday announced ‘Genius’ Grant 2022 fellows. The 25 winners will receive a ‘no strings attached’ award of $800,000 over five years. The fellowship honours discipline-bending and society-changing people whose work offers inspiration and insight. 

“The 2022 MacArthur Fellows are architects of new modes of activism, artistic practice, and citizen science. They are excavators uncovering what has been overlooked, undervalued, or poorly understood. They are archivists reminding us of what should survive,” MacArthur Fellows director Marlies Carruth said. 

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The winners include a specialist in plastic waste management, artists, musicians, computer scientists, and many others. 

Who are they? 

Kiese Laymon: The 48-year-old fiction and nonfiction writer from Houston, Texas is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. He is the author of three full-length books: a novel, Long Division (2013), and two memoirs, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (2013) and Heavy: An American Memoir. 

Tavares Strachan: An interdisciplinary conceptual artist, Tavares Strachan, has accomplished logistical feats while also elevating the histories of past marginalized artists and leaders. He is 42 years old and lives in New York. 

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Sky Hopinka: The 38-year-old is from Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He is an artist and filmmaker whose abstract and documentary films feature Indigenous languages and perspectives. Hopinka is also a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and a descendant of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño people.

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Paul Chan: The 49-year-old from New York is an artist and publisher, who works in different mediums and draws on a range of cultural references to invite viewers to reflect on the world. His work is inspired by outsider artists, playwrights, and philosophers like Henry Darger, Samuel Beckett, Theodor W. Adorno, and Marquis de Sade.