Category: Architecture

High school sweethearts and Wisconsinites Sara Zoellick and Matt Boelter grew up just outside Madison, the state’s capital city. These days, though, the couple of more than a decade proudly calls Milwaukee home.

“After going to different colleges, we moved in together in Milwaukee and we’ve been here ever since,” Zoellick said. “We love Milwaukee, it’s really a part of who we are.”

The couple recently put down permanent roots in the city, buying a light-filled condo that sits right alongside the Milwaukee River.

It was only fitting that when they said “I do” in October 2016, they did so at the gorgeous Milwaukee County Courthouse.

Then, they celebrated with a sunset river cruise with their closest friends and family. Local photographer Heather Cook Elliot was there to capture both events.

“We loved the art deco architecture of Milwaukee County Courthouse and it just seemed so effortless to us. We felt a big wedding just wasn’t our style,” Zoellick told HuffPost. “Plus, the small wedding gave us what we really wanted, which is to always be on a boat!”

Below, Zoellick and Boelter, who are approaching their first wedding anniversary, share more special moments from the big day. Be sure to follow along with us as we profile couples marrying at city halls around the country for HuffPost’s Listen To America bus tour.

Who did you choose to invite and include in your wedding?

SZ: We had four couples in our bridal party, not counting us. I feel like couples think that just because you are getting married at the courthouse, you can’t have a bridal party ― not true. We planned our wedding in six weeks, and were very fortunate that most of our friends could join us on the big day. Our immediate families and bridal party were there for the ceremony which took place in the judge’s chamber. I bet we were pushing 20 in that room!

Tell us a little bit about what your wore that day. Any special signficance?

SZ: My engagement ring was a sapphire ring gifted to Matt from his grandmother shortly before she passed. We made our wedding bands from his grandpa’s wedding ring, and we were able to use the metal and stones in both our bands.

My “something old” was my great grandmother’s 1933 art deco engagement ring. She and I shared the same birthday so that was very nice to be able to include so much history in our wedding.

Matt had sapphire earrings made for me as a wedding gift to match my engagement ring (“something blue”). My wedding dress was from BHLDN.

MB: Sara’s gift to me were antique Scottish Thistle cufflinks. We went to Scotland as part of our honeymoon.

What was your favorite part about the wedding day, or your favorite detail?

MB: We love our wedding bands. We tell everyone about them. We love history and it means so much to the both of us that we can add our story to our heirloom rings. We really enjoyed working the designers and being apart of the creative process.

SZ: I would add that we both loved spending the morning with our best friends. We got ready at home. At the time our friends lived right above us and the boys got ready at their apartment and the girls downstairs at our condo. The boys decorated our 1983 blue moped with beer cans and just married sign for our first look. So great!

What were your post-wedding festivities like?

The rest of our invitees (about 60 total) joined us for a cocktail cruise and first dances on the Milwaukee River and Lake Michigan. Afterward, we hosted a dinner reception at one of our local bars, Paddy’s Pub. The boating was our favorite part of the reception ― we love showing off Milwaukee, and it looks so amazing from the water!

What do you love most about living in your city? What’s your ideal date night there?

SZ: We really enjoy the amenities of a big city in a small town package. Our ideal date night would be a hike up the Milwaukee River Greenway to the Hubbard Park Beer Garden for a liter and a concert. Then, we’ll stroll the city streets back home and critique the mix of old Victorian houses amidst modern construction. In the summer there is always a festival, block party, or concert to go to, and if the weather is bad we can choose between a hot new restaurant or a classic supper club like Jack Pandl’s for a good ol’ fish fry and an old-fashioned.

In winter we like to cozy up to an old hotel fireplace (our favorite spot for that is Hotel Pfister) or just put on the snow boots and head down to our local bar ― Just Art’s Saloon ― for pizza and to complain about the weather. Art’s isn’t for everyone but its totally for us. Makes you feel like you are back home in a small town. Everyone knows everyone.

See more photos from the couple’s big day below:

When I moved to Detroit in the mid-’90s, my friends and colleagues in Atlanta thought I was crazy. Detroit’s national reputation suggested that smart people knew to stay away. I challenged the prevailing narrative outsiders had about the city. And I still do. At the same time, there are many issues that plague the community. So each day I applaud the positives of life in Detroit and work to resolve the negatives.

The pluses are many. Without question, Detroit has one of the nation’s strongest arts communities. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Wright Museum of African American History, the Michigan Opera Theater and the Detroit Institute of Arts are each world-class entities. They are in the heart of the city and attract diverse local, national and even international audiences. Along with the many galleries, community theaters and choirs, Detroit has an arts enterprise that rivals any other metropolitan area in the country.

World-class colleges and universities also contribute to a vital community, and bring smart, interesting, engaging people to the region. Students from across the globe study in the metro area. The diversity of cultures and perspectives offer an opportunity to learn, engage in thoughtful dialogue and experience a wide array of foods.

Why wouldn’t you want to live in Detroit?

For some, the answer to that question lies in the effects of years of disinvestment in the city, the crime rate, the poor public school system, the absence of major retail in the downtown area, racial tensions, high taxes, exorbitant auto insurances and crumbling infrastructure.

Taken by themselves, this litany of ills would frighten anyone away from Detroit. However, if you look at that list as opportunities for improvement and growth, you will see many reasons to be a part of the city’s ongoing renaissance. The community’s major strength lies in the resourceful, committed, hopeful and dedicated citizens.

I have seen first-hand how lives are transformed through adult education and skill development. Men and women have been able to move from poverty to life-sustaining employment as the result of the programs offered by the Focus: HOPE agency. Community gardens and neighborhood entrepreneurial ventures have blossomed in the city to bring communities together in a sharing economy.

The Detroit Public Schools Foundation (DPSF) has also offered students opportunities to improve. Students in Detroit’s public schools have learned from the Dance Theater of Harlem and performed at the Opera House. DPSF has made these and other out-of-class experiences possible despite the absence of district funds to provide these extra-curricular activities. There are many other examples of positive programs and projects that make Detroit a great place to live.

Nonetheless, much of the national press has focused on the the significant blight that has taken over too many neighborhoods. It’s true that the magnitude of blight in this city is unprecedented in America. Of the 380,000 total parcels, Motor City Mapping identified 84,641 that needed some type of intervention. Of these, 73,035 were residential, 5,471 commercial, and 6,135 were vacant lots.

There has been a concerted effort by the city administration to demolish buildings that cannot be saved, remodel and sell those that are in “tipping point” neighborhoods and clean vacant lots. A report from 2014 recommended the removal of 40,000 structures in the city. The goal of this large-scale effort is to create a climate of hope and optimism for residents. While there is still much work to be done, the progress on the removal of blight is noticeable. Our challenge is to continue the forward movement, in light of limited available funds.

The removal of blight is an essential first step in the design of a safer city with increased property values. The Blight Removal Task Force is a model public-private collaboration that has shaped much of the work done by Detroit Land Bank and the office of the mayor. The recommendations contained in the Task Force report leverage assets from government, philanthropic and non-profit sectors.

The data collection that has been integral to the blight removal planning process will inform all members of the community. Once it becomes clear which housing stock is best suited to families, schools will be able to better serve children in those neighborhoods. Commercial enterprises will know where to locate. Entertainment will follow. An incremental building process will naturally occur, resulting in strong communities where citizens will want to live, work and play.

The built environment will amplify the cultural and economic environments. Thus continuing to implement the Blight Removal Task Force Plan is a necessary requirement to ensure the rest of the country knows that Detroit is a great place for everyone.

But no matter what programs or projects are implemented, the people make this city great.

From a reporter who’s dedicated her career to documenting segregation in America’s education system, to one of the first computer scientists to hack an automobile, to an artist who doubles as a counter-surveillance researcher, this year’s roster of MacArthur Fellows celebrates yet another year of exceptional human achievement.

Yuval Sharon is a 37-year-old director and producer of opera whose unorthodox performances ― often immersive and itinerant ― challenge the predominant understanding of what opera can be. His 2014 piece Hopscotch: A Mobile Opera for 24 Cars, took place in and around Los Angeles, with audience members commuting in limousines as singers and musicians emerged at various locations ― and within the vehicles themselves ― to tell a dynamic story within a living city.

Stefan Savage is a 48-year-old computer scientist whose interdisciplinary techniques address cybersecurity in the age of “smart” devices. Based in LaJolla, California, Savage recently demonstrated how an automobile could be hacked remotely and began working with car manufacturers to reduce security threats. His research in internet-related crimes, and the technological and cultural blindspots that enable them, prove critical in today’s constantly evolving technology landscape.

Damon Rich is a 42-year-old designer and urban planner whose strategies uproot the systems of oppression and discrimination embedded in cities’ layouts through predicaments like division, gentrification and environmental injustice. The Newark, New Jersey-based planner is known for his clever and sometimes witty approach to the field, as evidenced in his 2009 book Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center, which used the Queens Museum’s 1,000-square-foot representation of New York City to visualize the foreclosure crisis. His work invites citizens who are often disenfranchised to the forefront of conversations about urban design, bringing democracy to the city space.

Derek Peterson is a 46-year-old historian and professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he studies and preserves East African texts, specifically in Gikuyu and Swahili, to challenge predominant narratives regarding colonialism and nationalism in Africa. Peterson’s research incorporates an unrivaled array of written materials, ranging from diaries and religious pamphlets to syllabi and dictionaries, which speak to the interplay of motivations, perspectives, traditions and contexts at play in these often overlooked materials.

Betsy Levy Paluck is a 39-year-old research psychologist at Princeton University concerned with destructive patterns of human behavior, including discrimination, bullying and ethnic conflict. Paluck’s field research, which has taken her from American high schools to post-conflict Rwanda, determined that, as the MacArthur Foundation describes, “to change behavior, it is more important to target individuals’ perceptions of social norms than their personal beliefs.”

Trevor Paglen is a 43-year-old, Berlin-based conceptual artist and geographer who uses public records and declassified documents as artistic materials, exposing the alarming grip military and corporate power possess in today’s climate of mass surveillance. His practice includes the establishing of “limit telephotography,” which uses high-power telescopes and cameras to photograph secret prisons and military bases.

Kate Orff is a 45-year-old landscape architect and founding principal of SCAPE, a Manhattan-based urban design studio that believes in urban landscapes’ ability to revive ecosystems, adapt to the difficulties posed by climate change and connect individuals. Orff collaborates with ecologists, engineers, educators, artists and community members to draw attention to the natural histories of specific regions, whether through infrastructure initiatives or podcast tours.

Viet Thanh Nguyen is a 45-year-old writer, cultural critic and University of Southern California professor who uses fiction to provide a “voice to the voiceless,” specifically by humanizing underrepresented minorities. His 2015 novel The Sympathizer is a spy thriller told from the perspective of a communist double agent in and after the Vietnam War. His stories offer alternative understandings of well-trodden American war stories, where marginalized voices are often obscured and erased.

Rami Nashashibi is a 45-year-old community leader and the executive director of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN). The organization, based in Chicago’s South Side, works to provide health and wellness services, community organizing, criminal justice reform, arts enrichment and other services to low income residents. His Muslim Run Corner Store Campaign brought a wider selection of healthy foods to overlooked neighborhoods and eased racial tensions between the predominately Arab immigrant store owners and black patrons.

Taylor Mac is a 44-year-old, New York-based theater artist ― and at times a playwright, performance artist, actor and all three at once. Mac, who uses the gender pronoun judy, breaks down distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow art to toy with cultural assumptions about gender, performance and identity. judy’s 24-hour piece “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music” (2014–2016), explores the history of American popular music through a queer lens, highlighting the instances in which pop culture innovations have emerged as weapons against intolerance and injustice.

Cristina Jiménez Moreta is a 33-year-old social justice organizer, as well as the co-founder and the executive director of United We Dream, a nationwide network dedicated to helping immigrant families based in Washington, D.C. Moreta came to the United States from Ecuador as a 13-year-old undocumented immigrant. She has since worked to put young people at the forefront of a strategic effort to challenge the stigmas undocumented youth face and enact the policy changes necessary to protect them from deportation and offer a pathway to citizenship.

Rhiannon Giddens is a 40-year-old singer, instrumentalist, songwriter, musical historian and activist based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Having trained as an opera singer before mastering the fiddle and five-string banjo, Giddens illuminates the overlooked influence of African-American artists to genres like folk and country. “I’m really interested in shining a light on those aspects of musical history that have been traditionally neglected and left behind,” she told the MacArthur Foundation. “Because I feel that our current situation can be explained by what’s going on culturally in years past that hasn’t been addressed.”

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a 41-year-old investigative journalist for The New York Times Magazine who often explores the effects of segregation on the American education system. Her work, including the 2016 article “Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City”, combines historical research and political analysis with first-person accounts, bringing the persistent reality of systemic racism and its pernicious effect on children and communities into sharp focus.

Jason De León is an anthropologist at the University of Michigan who combines ethnographic analysis, forensic science and archaeological research in his work studying migration from Latin America to the United States. His 2015 book The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail, investigates the approximately 300 people a year who die attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, often with no identification or belongings on their person. The work explores who they are, how they die and what happens to them afterward.

Emmanuel Candès is a 47-year-old applied mathematician and statistician at Stanford University. His research, as explained by The MacArthur Foundation, “focuses on reconstructing high-resolution images from small numbers of random measurements, as well as recovering the missing entries in massive data tables.” Candès compared the technique, which is applicable in fields from diagnostic healthcare to radar imaging, to inferring a customer’s Netflix preferences from the limited assortment of movies she views and rates.

Dawoud Bey is a 63-year-old photographer and educator who creates deeply engaging portraits of individuals from overlooked communities and reimagines how cultural institutions can better serve the communities in which they are based. In 2013, the Chicago-based artist created “The Birmingham Project,” a photo series paying tribute to the six children killed in the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and its aftermath in Birmingham, Alabama. His more recent series, “Harlem Redux,” explores the transformative effects of gentrification on the historic black neighborhood.

Regina Barzilay is a 46-year-old computational linguist at the department of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. Barzilay develops machine learning methods that enable machines to interpret human language and perform useful tasks. “One day machines can communicate with us in the same way we communicate with each other,” she told the MacArthur Foundation. Barzilay is currently exploring how machine learning can apply to the field of oncology, specifically in identifying trends that affect early diagnosis, treatment and disease prevention.

Annie Baker is a 36-year-old playwright, based in New York, known for upending expectations of what kinds of people, language and situations are worthy of theatrical interpretation. Her 2009 production “Circle Mirror Transformation” takes place in a community acting class, in which five budding actors participate in exercises that illuminate elements of their interior selves. In 2010′s “The Aliens,” three amateur songwriters get high next to a dumpster, communicating primarily not through language but physical tics and cues.

Greg Asbed is a human rights strategist and a co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Fair Food Program (CIW) in Immokalee, Florida. For decades, the CIW has fought to improve conditions for low-wage workers and provide protections from sexual assault, wage theft and other abuses in the workplace. With his approach, dubbed worker-driven social responsibility (WSR), which has already spread from crop industries in Florida to the dairy industry in Vermont and garment industry in Bangladesh, he hopes to transform workplaces around the world.

Sunil Amrith is a 38-year-old historian in the department of South Asian studies at Harvard University. He studies migration in South and Southeast Asia, particularly in relation to the movement of people and goods across the Bay of Bengal, which has occurred for centuries and continues to impact culture to this day. His 2013 book Crossing the Bay of Bengal examines how climate and environment shape the lives of ordinary Indians, and his upcoming work will delve into how climate change ― specifically monsoons ― continue to alter South and Southeast Asian history.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a 32-year-old figurative painter, born in Nigeria and based in Los Angeles, whose work combines techniques, media and subjects to visualize the hybrid reality of the immigrant experience. Crosby’s multimedia paintings invite viewers into her own intimate world, introducing them to her home and her family, to capture the global story of existing in between boundaries, cultures and traditions. At once accessible and incredibly dense, Crosby’s images offer textured representations of spaces, people and lives that fold in multiple perspectives and defy simple categorization.

Check out the 2016 class of MacArthur Fellows here.

From a reporter who’s dedicated her career to documenting segregation in America’s education system, to one of the first computer scientists to hack an automobile, to an artist who doubles as a counter-surveillance researcher, this year’s roster of MacArthur Fellows celebrates yet another year of exceptional human achievement.

Yuval Sharon is a 37-year-old director and producer of opera whose unorthodox performances ― often immersive and itinerant ― challenge the predominant understanding of what opera can be. His 2014 piece Hopscotch: A Mobile Opera for 24 Cars, took place in and around Los Angeles, with audience members commuting in limousines as singers and musicians emerged at various locations ― and within the vehicles themselves ― to tell a dynamic story within a living city.

Stefan Savage is a 48-year-old computer scientist whose interdisciplinary techniques address cybersecurity in the age of “smart” devices. Based in LaJolla, California, Savage recently demonstrated how an automobile could be hacked remotely and began working with car manufacturers to reduce security threats. His research in internet-related crimes, and the technological and cultural blindspots that enable them, prove critical in today’s constantly evolving technology landscape.

Damon Rich is a 42-year-old designer and urban planner whose strategies uproot the systems of oppression and discrimination embedded in cities’ layouts through predicaments like division, gentrification and environmental injustice. The Newark, New Jersey-based planner is known for his clever and sometimes witty approach to the field, as evidenced in his 2009 book Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center, which used the Queens Museum’s 1,000-square-foot representation of New York City to visualize the foreclosure crisis. His work invites citizens who are often disenfranchised to the forefront of conversations about urban design, bringing democracy to the city space.

Derek Peterson is a 46-year-old historian and professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he studies and preserves East African texts, specifically in Gikuyu and Swahili, to challenge predominant narratives regarding colonialism and nationalism in Africa. Peterson’s research incorporates an unrivaled array of written materials, ranging from diaries and religious pamphlets to syllabi and dictionaries, which speak to the interplay of motivations, perspectives, traditions and contexts at play in these often overlooked materials.

Betsy Levy Paluck is a 39-year-old research psychologist at Princeton University concerned with destructive patterns of human behavior, including discrimination, bullying and ethnic conflict. Paluck’s field research, which has taken her from American high schools to post-conflict Rwanda, determined that, as the MacArthur Foundation describes, “to change behavior, it is more important to target individuals’ perceptions of social norms than their personal beliefs.”

Trevor Paglen is a 43-year-old, Berlin-based conceptual artist and geographer who uses public records and declassified documents as artistic materials, exposing the alarming grip military and corporate power possess in today’s climate of mass surveillance. His practice includes the establishing of “limit telephotography,” which uses high-power telescopes and cameras to photograph secret prisons and military bases.

Kate Orff is a 45-year-old landscape architect and founding principal of SCAPE, a Manhattan-based urban design studio that believes in urban landscapes’ ability to revive ecosystems, adapt to the difficulties posed by climate change and connect individuals. Orff collaborates with ecologists, engineers, educators, artists and community members to draw attention to the natural histories of specific regions, whether through infrastructure initiatives or podcast tours.

Viet Thanh Nguyen is a 45-year-old writer, cultural critic and University of Southern California professor who uses fiction to provide a “voice to the voiceless,” specifically by humanizing underrepresented minorities. His 2015 novel The Sympathizer is a spy thriller told from the perspective of a communist double agent in and after the Vietnam War. His stories offer alternative understandings of well-trodden American war stories, where marginalized voices are often obscured and erased.

Rami Nashashibi is a 45-year-old community leader and the executive director of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN). The organization, based in Chicago’s South Side, works to provide health and wellness services, community organizing, criminal justice reform, arts enrichment and other services to low income residents. His Muslim Run Corner Store Campaign brought a wider selection of healthy foods to overlooked neighborhoods and eased racial tensions between the predominately Arab immigrant store owners and black patrons.

Taylor Mac is a 44-year-old, New York-based theater artist ― and at times a playwright, performance artist, actor and all three at once. Mac, who uses the gender pronoun judy, breaks down distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow art to toy with cultural assumptions about gender, performance and identity. judy’s 24-hour piece “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music” (2014–2016), explores the history of American popular music through a queer lens, highlighting the instances in which pop culture innovations have emerged as weapons against intolerance and injustice.

Cristina Jiménez Moreta is a 33-year-old social justice organizer, as well as the co-founder and the executive director of United We Dream, a nationwide network dedicated to helping immigrant families based in Washington, D.C. Moreta came to the United States from Ecuador as a 13-year-old undocumented immigrant. She has since worked to put young people at the forefront of a strategic effort to challenge the stigmas undocumented youth face and enact the policy changes necessary to protect them from deportation and offer a pathway to citizenship.

Rhiannon Giddens is a 40-year-old singer, instrumentalist, songwriter, musical historian and activist based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Having trained as an opera singer before mastering the fiddle and five-string banjo, Giddens illuminates the overlooked influence of African-American artists to genres like folk and country. “I’m really interested in shining a light on those aspects of musical history that have been traditionally neglected and left behind,” she told the MacArthur Foundation. “Because I feel that our current situation can be explained by what’s going on culturally in years past that hasn’t been addressed.”

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a 41-year-old investigative journalist for The New York Times Magazine who often explores the effects of segregation on the American education system. Her work, including the 2016 article “Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City”, combines historical research and political analysis with first-person accounts, bringing the persistent reality of systemic racism and its pernicious effect on children and communities into sharp focus.

Jason De León is an anthropologist at the University of Michigan who combines ethnographic analysis, forensic science and archaeological research in his work studying migration from Latin America to the United States. His 2015 book The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail, investigates the approximately 300 people a year who die attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, often with no identification or belongings on their person. The work explores who they are, how they die and what happens to them afterward.

Emmanuel Candès is a 47-year-old applied mathematician and statistician at Stanford University. His research, as explained by The MacArthur Foundation, “focuses on reconstructing high-resolution images from small numbers of random measurements, as well as recovering the missing entries in massive data tables.” Candès compared the technique, which is applicable in fields from diagnostic healthcare to radar imaging, to inferring a customer’s Netflix preferences from the limited assortment of movies she views and rates.

Dawoud Bey is a 63-year-old photographer and educator who creates deeply engaging portraits of individuals from overlooked communities and reimagines how cultural institutions can better serve the communities in which they are based. In 2013, the Chicago-based artist created “The Birmingham Project,” a photo series paying tribute to the six children killed in the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and its aftermath in Birmingham, Alabama. His more recent series, “Harlem Redux,” explores the transformative effects of gentrification on the historic black neighborhood.

Regina Barzilay is a 46-year-old computational linguist at the department of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. Barzilay develops machine learning methods that enable machines to interpret human language and perform useful tasks. “One day machines can communicate with us in the same way we communicate with each other,” she told the MacArthur Foundation. Barzilay is currently exploring how machine learning can apply to the field of oncology, specifically in identifying trends that affect early diagnosis, treatment and disease prevention.

Annie Baker is a 36-year-old playwright, based in New York, known for upending expectations of what kinds of people, language and situations are worthy of theatrical interpretation. Her 2009 production “Circle Mirror Transformation” takes place in a community acting class, in which five budding actors participate in exercises that illuminate elements of their interior selves. In 2010′s “The Aliens,” three amateur songwriters get high next to a dumpster, communicating primarily not through language but physical tics and cues.

Greg Asbed is a human rights strategist and a co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Fair Food Program (CIW) in Immokalee, Florida. For decades, the CIW has fought to improve conditions for low-wage workers and provide protections from sexual assault, wage theft and other abuses in the workplace. With his approach, dubbed worker-driven social responsibility (WSR), which has already spread from crop industries in Florida to the dairy industry in Vermont and garment industry in Bangladesh, he hopes to transform workplaces around the world.

Sunil Amrith is a 38-year-old historian in the department of South Asian studies at Harvard University. He studies migration in South and Southeast Asia, particularly in relation to the movement of people and goods across the Bay of Bengal, which has occurred for centuries and continues to impact culture to this day. His 2013 book Crossing the Bay of Bengal examines how climate and environment shape the lives of ordinary Indians, and his upcoming work will delve into how climate change ― specifically monsoons ― continue to alter South and Southeast Asian history.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a 32-year-old figurative painter, born in Nigeria and based in Los Angeles, whose work combines techniques, media and subjects to visualize the hybrid reality of the immigrant experience. Crosby’s multimedia paintings invite viewers into her own intimate world, introducing them to her home and her family, to capture the global story of existing in between boundaries, cultures and traditions. At once accessible and incredibly dense, Crosby’s images offer textured representations of spaces, people and lives that fold in multiple perspectives and defy simple categorization.

Check out the 2016 class of MacArthur Fellows here.