• Login / Join
  • About
  • •
  • Contact
  • •
  • Advertising
bustler logo
bustler logo
  • News
  • Competitions
  • Events
  • Bustler is powered by Archinect
  • Sign up for Bustler's Email Newsletters

  • Follow these Bustler feeds:

  • Search

    Search in

  • Submit

    What are you submitting?

    News Pitch
    Competition
    Event
  • Login / Join
  • News|Competitions|Events
  • Search
    | Submit
    | Follow
  • Search in

    What are you submitting?

    News Pitch
    Competition
    Event

    Follow these Bustler feeds:

  • About|Contact|Advertising
  • Login / Join

Visual artist and architect Amanda Williams receives 2022 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship grant

By Katherine Guimapang|

Wednesday, Oct 12, 2022

Amanda Williams - 2022 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. Image courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The MacArthur Foundation has announced the recipients of this year's 2022 MacArthur Grant Fellows. Frequently referred to as the MacArthur "Genius Grant," the Foundation awards "unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction."

This year, notable Chicago-based visual artist and architect Amanda Williams is among the 2022 MacArthur grant winners. In total, 25 individuals were selected as grant recipients across various areas of study, including sociology, computer science, music, film, and math, to name a few. Each fellow will receive a "no strings attached" stipend over the course of five years. 

Williams is a trained architect who received her B.Arch from Cornell University. Her architectural background builds on discussions of race and the built environment through artistic expression. Throughout her career, her work has focused on equity and its relationship to Black communities. She investigates the impacts of urban planning, zoning, disinvestment, and gentrification and how they impact marginalized communities. 

Image courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

"It was growing up on the South Side and seeing inequities of how space seemed to be laid out across the city that was the impetus for architecture. Later on, I realized that visual art often has a way to resonate with a lot of the things that I was thinking about in a way that architecture did not."

Williams' work pulls from her own experiences and how those moments can foster important discussions regarding race, inequity, public space, and culture. "I'm always imagining ways that I might use architecture as a medium to talk about spatial experiences that people might have," she shared with the MacArthur Foundation. "Art can function in that same way. Whether it's sharking up a map or painting an abstraction of candy colors from childhood memory." 

Examples of her multidisciplinary approach combining art and architecture can be seen in works such as What Black Is This, You Say?, and Thrival Geographies (In My Mind I See a Line), and her most recent project, Embodied Sensations. 

Photographs of Amanda Williams' "Color(ed) Theory" project on display. Image screen grab courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

She discussed her best-known project, Color(ed) Theory, with the MacArthur Foundation and shared, "I studied color theory in architecture school, and I really wanted to explore what 'colored theory' might mean when race and the medium or the hue of the pigment are interchangeable or can inform one another [...] There's something very powerful about inserting new memories into people's psyches about what should be valued and how we can create value."

Williams' work has been exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions at MoMA, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Smithsonian Design Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Venice Architecture Biennale, and Storefront for Art and Architecture. In addition to her personal works, Williams has also held teaching positions at Cornell University, Washington University in St. Louis, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and California College of the Arts. 

She joins a list of previous MacArthur Grant winners who also work within the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning. Past grant winners include Kate Orff, Damon Rich, Walter Hood, Emmanual Pratt, Jeanne Gang,  Elizabeth Diller, and Ricardo Scofidio, to name a few. To learn more about this year's 2022 MacArthur Fellows and their work click here.

Hear more from Willams in a special Fellow video from the MacArthur Foundation below. 

RELATED NEWS Walter Hood and Emmanuel Pratt among 2019 MacArthur Fellows
RELATED NEWS Kate Orff and Damon Rich awarded 2017 MacArthur 'Genius' Grant, but Urban Design was the real winner
Amanda Williams - Artist and Architect. 2022 MacArthur Fellow. Video courtesy of the MacArthur Foundation.

Related

macarthur foundation ● macarthur genius grant ● amanda williams ● chicago ● black architects ● black designers ● fellowship ● fellows ● award ● academia
Cornell University
Cornell University

Share

  • Follow

    1 Comment

  • Donna Sink ·  Oct 13, 22 1:19 AM

    Awesome!!!

  • Comment as :

Visual artist and architect Amanda Williams receives 2022 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship grant

Henning Larsen's 'Changing Our Footprint' explores pathways toward sustainable building

Eight projects named best in the field at the 2023 AIA Interior Architecture Awards

A ‘genuinely delightful’ reflection on food, globalization, and automation wins 2022 Architecture Drawing Prize

Winners of Buildner's MICROHOME #5 competition offer solutions for affordable housing crises

Sponsored Post by Buildner

Design a new concept of small-scale home: MICROHOME / Edition #6 is launched!

AIA announces 2023 Regional & Urban Design Awards winners

Five student teams win big at USC School of Architecture's 12th annual Design Charrette

The International Garden Festival reveals projects for its 24th edition

Sign up for Bustler's Email Newsletters

Kazuyo Sejima and Phyllis Lambert named recipients of 2023 Jane Drew Prize for Architecture and Ada Louise Huxtable Prize

Here are the 2022 Art of Building photography competition winners

HASTINGS Principal David M. Powell wins the 2023 AIA Award for Excellence in Public Architecture

OMA wins competition for a public expansion of Turin's Museo Egizio

Architecture and interiors celebrated at the 2022 International Design Awards

Peter Barber elevates the role of craft in design for the Royal Academy's 2023 Architecture Room

ACSA announces the 2023 Architectural Education Award winners

Next page » Loading

Visual artist and architect Amanda Williams receives 2022 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship grant

By Katherine Guimapang|

Wednesday, Oct 12, 2022

Share

Amanda Williams - 2022 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. Image courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Related

macarthur foundation ● macarthur genius grant ● amanda williams ● chicago ● black architects ● black designers ● fellowship ● fellows ● award ● academia
Cornell University
Cornell University

The MacArthur Foundation has announced the recipients of this year's 2022 MacArthur Grant Fellows. Frequently referred to as the MacArthur "Genius Grant," the Foundation awards "unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction."

This year, notable Chicago-based visual artist and architect Amanda Williams is among the 2022 MacArthur grant winners. In total, 25 individuals were selected as grant recipients across various areas of study, including sociology, computer science, music, film, and math, to name a few. Each fellow will receive a "no strings attached" stipend over the course of five years. 

Williams is a trained architect who received her B.Arch from Cornell University. Her architectural background builds on discussions of race and the built environment through artistic expression. Throughout her career, her work has focused on equity and its relationship to Black communities. She investigates the impacts of urban planning, zoning, disinvestment, and gentrification and how they impact marginalized communities. 

Image courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

"It was growing up on the South Side and seeing inequities of how space seemed to be laid out across the city that was the impetus for architecture. Later on, I realized that visual art often has a way to resonate with a lot of the things that I was thinking about in a way that architecture did not."

Williams' work pulls from her own experiences and how those moments can foster important discussions regarding race, inequity, public space, and culture. "I'm always imagining ways that I might use architecture as a medium to talk about spatial experiences that people might have," she shared with the MacArthur Foundation. "Art can function in that same way. Whether it's sharking up a map or painting an abstraction of candy colors from childhood memory." 

Examples of her multidisciplinary approach combining art and architecture can be seen in works such as What Black Is This, You Say?, and Thrival Geographies (In My Mind I See a Line), and her most recent project, Embodied Sensations. 

Photographs of Amanda Williams' "Color(ed) Theory" project on display. Image screen grab courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

She discussed her best-known project, Color(ed) Theory, with the MacArthur Foundation and shared, "I studied color theory in architecture school, and I really wanted to explore what 'colored theory' might mean when race and the medium or the hue of the pigment are interchangeable or can inform one another [...] There's something very powerful about inserting new memories into people's psyches about what should be valued and how we can create value."

Williams' work has been exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions at MoMA, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Smithsonian Design Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Venice Architecture Biennale, and Storefront for Art and Architecture. In addition to her personal works, Williams has also held teaching positions at Cornell University, Washington University in St. Louis, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and California College of the Arts. 

She joins a list of previous MacArthur Grant winners who also work within the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning. Past grant winners include Kate Orff, Damon Rich, Walter Hood, Emmanual Pratt, Jeanne Gang,  Elizabeth Diller, and Ricardo Scofidio, to name a few. To learn more about this year's 2022 MacArthur Fellows and their work click here.

Hear more from Willams in a special Fellow video from the MacArthur Foundation below. 

RELATED NEWS Walter Hood and Emmanuel Pratt among 2019 MacArthur Fellows
RELATED NEWS Kate Orff and Damon Rich awarded 2017 MacArthur 'Genius' Grant, but Urban Design was the real winner
Amanda Williams - Artist and Architect. 2022 MacArthur Fellow. Video courtesy of the MacArthur Foundation.

Share

  • Follow

    1 Comment

  • Donna Sink ·  Oct 13, 22 1:19 AM

    Awesome!!!

  • Comment as :

Archinect JobsArchinect Jobs

The Archinect Job Board attracts the world's top architectural design talents.

VIEW ALL JOBS POST A JOB

Project Coordinator Position

BMA Architects

Project Coordinator Position

Bridgehampton, NY, US

Architectural Designer

Castelli-Design

Architectural Designer

New York, NY, US

Project Manager

Mojo Stumer Associates

Project Manager

Greenvale, NY, US

Designer

SGPA Architecture and Planning

Designer

San Francisco, CA, US

Architect

Knight Architecture LLC

Architect

New Haven, CT, US

Project Architect

Norris Architecture

Project Architect

Nashville, TN, US

Architect / Designer - REVIT

ZERZA

Architect / Designer - REVIT

New York, NY, US

Project Architect - Residential

JAM

Project Architect - Residential

New York, NY, US

Interior Designers

SOSHNY Architects

Interior Designers

New York, NY, US

Architectural Designer / Project Manager

Matt Peterson Studio

Architectural Designer / Project Manager

Los Angeles, CA, US

Next page » Loading