ON AND OFF CAMPUS: MACARTHUR FOUNDATION FELLOWS

Sky Hopinka, Sherri Burt Hennessey Artist in Residence, and Paul Chan MFA ’03 have been named MacArthur Fellows for 2022. An unrestricted award of $800,000 accompanies this distinction.

Hopinka was selected on the strength of his film, video art, and photography. His work explores Indigenous identities and representation, often blending traditional documentary-style footage with abstract layers of imagery and sound. This creates a sort of visual poetry, offering a unique cinematic perspective that questions the dominant cultural expectation of linear storytelling. Hopinka joins nine other distinguished faculty members who have received MacArthur fellowships: poet Ann Lauterbach; artists Jeffrey Gibson, An-My Lê, and Judy Pfaff; journalist Mark Danner; filmmaker Charles Burnett; and novelists Valeria Luiselli, Norman Manea (emeritus), and Dinaw Mengestu.

Paul Chan MFA ’03. Photos ©John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Chan is an independent artist and writer whose multidisciplinary work probes politics, culture, and the nature of art itself. Chan received the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College in 2021. He has staged Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in the streets of New Orleans, founded a small press, and created detailed digital animations. His latest project, Breathers (at Walker Art Center through July 16, 2023), plays with a new kind of moving image: inflatable fabric figures whose motion can be choreographed to evoke certain emotions. “I found myself in art because it was the field that allowed me to do things wrong and still have it matter,” says Chan. “That freedom allows me to explore what else is possible.”