Four of the 26 recipients of this year’s MacArthur Fellowships, also known as “genius grants,” are LGBTQ+, and four of them are Black or people of color.
The fellowship awards each recipient $800,000, to be paid in quarterly installments over five years. But more importantly, the honor brings their work to the public eye and helps them continue to work in line with the charity’s larger goal of “building a fairer, greener and more peaceful world.” This means that your precious time will be given to you.
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The four queer recipients of the 2024 MacArthur Fellowship Awards are:
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Justin Vivian Bond – Performer
A longtime cabaret performer, Bond rose to fame as her drag alter ego Kiki Dulane at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Their chaotic and inspired performances (sometimes by the musical duo of Kiki and Herb) tap into raw emotion and history in a playful and passionate way that inspires emotion and a sense of punk rock rebellion. It is a combination of explanations.
A transgender performer has appeared in queer director John Cameron Mitchell’s film. short busFor example, on nightclub stages and concert halls around the world. her memoir Tango: A childhood in high heels backwards Winner of the 2013 Lambda Literary Award in the transgender nonfiction category.
“I’ve always thought of cabaret as a form of political resistance. At its best, I think cabaret is beautiful and powerful music,” she said. “Creating beauty in the face of beauty and hate is a very powerful thing. It allows you to be beautiful, to have a rich inner life, and to express it outwardly.”
Jericho Brown – Poet
“Poet is my first identity,” says the openly gay poet. “I feel like I’m a black man and a poet at the same time. I feel like I’m a Southerner and a poet at the same time. I feel like I can’t help it. It’s in my veins, it’s in my blood. I feel like it’s in there.”
Brown’s poetry collection examines black masculinity, spirituality, family, sexuality, and racial identity through pop, jazz, blues, and contemporary music and poetry forms. ghazalan old Arabic poetic structure.
He developed a unique poetic structure known as the “duplex,” and his collections explore topics such as the HIV/AIDS crisis, mass incarceration, and community trauma in ways that unite, inspire, and amaze the souls of readers. and broader injustices.
“Poetry should be difficult, but its difficulty lies in taking the tender and the violent and placing them side by side so that we can better see and understand ourselves.” ,” Brown said.
“I also think my poetry is ultimately about the human condition,” he continued. “The human condition is a state of solitude, and if you understand that everyone experiences it, solitude can certainly be a way to love, a way to joy, a way to celebrate.” And poetry allows you to do that in a way that no other art can.
Shamel Pitts – Choreographer
Pitts, a choreographer who identifies as queer, trained as a classical dancer in ballet and modern dance, but went on to become an African American artist with unique lighting, projection, electronic music, and fashion. , has become famous for creating interdisciplinary performances that incorporate other technical elements. futuristic lens.
He founded Tribe, a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary art collective where he collaborates with other artists to “help us thrive as Black and Brown people and help our bodies regenerate and reach their potential.” We are working to “reimagine the future as a space of , connection and community.”
“I love dance. It moves a lot of poetry because of its power and ability to communicate beyond words,” he said, adding that his training is mainly based on the “Gaga” style. . Listen to your body before telling it what to do. ”
“It has the potential to connect to many different things at the same time,” he said. “When people encounter my work, I want them to experience the power of dance and collaboration and proclaim joy and liberation through and beyond our bodies.”
Alice Wong – Disability Justice Activist
“Disability is more than pain, trauma, and tragedy,” says Wong, a prominent queer writer and editor. “Living in a world without disabilities breeds creativity, adaptability, and talent.”
In 2014 she Visualization project for people with disabilities (DVP) aims to “amplify the unfiltered voices of people with disabilities” while examining their experiences through an intersectional lens. Since then, she has built a media platform that includes podcasts, videos, educational outreach, collaborative efforts with other community organizations, and a collection of essays by writers with disabilities.
“As a writer and editor, I address the lack of disabled voices in publishing, journalism, and popular culture, and illustrate the systemic ableism that renders disabled people a disposable burden and object of pity.” she said. “Storytelling is a powerful form of resistance. It leaves behind evidence that we have been in a society that devalues, excludes, and excludes us.”
“The systematic meritocracy that I and millions of us face every day teaches us that we don’t matter, that our lives are too expensive and not worth saving. “I teach,” she continued. “I want to change the way people think about disability, from one-dimensional and negative to one that is more complex and nuanced. There is so much diversity, joy and richness in the lived experiences of disabled people. There are many of us.”
“Cultural change can happen by telling my story and amplifying the stories of others,” she added. “And together we can build a world centered on justice, access and care.”
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