Arts & Entertainment

Chicago Artist Tonika Lewis Johnson, Whose Work Explores Segregation, Awarded MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’

Chicago social justice artist and photographer Tonika Lewis Johnson is among 22 MacArthur Fellows who were chosen to receive the prestigious “Genius Grant” this year, the MacArthur Foundation announced Wednesday.

Johnson, an Englewood native, explores the impacts of segregation and disinvestment in Chicago neighborhoods through her “Folded Map Project,” “Inequity for Sale” and “UnBlocked Englewood” projects.

“Growing up in Englewood, every part of my life has been touched by segregation, and I know that to be true about everyone who lives in this city, so it really was a story that I wanted to tell and use my art, my photography, my passion for history to package all of that in a way that will be able to connect to the larger public,” Johnson said in a 2025 MacArthur Fellow announcement video.

The MacArthur Fellows Program aims to identify “creative” individuals who have a “track record of excellence in a field of scholarship or area of practice” and “demonstrate the ability to impact society in significant and beneficial ways,” according to MacArthur Foundation’s website.

Fellows receive a “no-strings-attached” $800,000 award, which pays out in equal quarterly installments over five years. View the full list of this year’s MacArthur Fellows here.

“The 2025 MacArthur Fellows expand the boundaries of knowledge, artistry, and human understanding,” said Kristen Mack, vice president of communications, MacArthur Fellows and partnerships at the MacArthur Foundation, in a statement.

Johnson’s “Folded Map Project” is a visual investigation that explores segregation in the city through its grid system by comparing “address pairs” on the North and South sides. The project brings together people who live on different sides of the city, whom Johnson features in the project as “map twins.”

“We have to understand individual Chicagoans did not build systemic segregation, but we can come together to disrupt it,” Johnson told WTTW News in 2023. “The way that you do that is by learning about each other.”

The Folded Map Project expanded into a multifaceted initiative, including a short film, a school curriculum and an action kit that aims to spark cross-neighborhood connection.

Johnson’s latest project UnBlocked Englewood, developed in partnership with the Chicago Bungalow Association, reclaims vacant lots and restores homes in Englewood impacted by land sale contracts.

The project builds off Johnson’s “Inequity for Sale” project, which highlighted how Black families were often forced to pay double or more to buy a home in the 1950s and ‘60s through discriminatory land sale contracts.

The block of 6500 South Aberdeen Street in Englewood is the focus of the “UnBlocked Englewood” project, which includes residents who are direct descendants of families impacted by the land sale contracts. Through the support of grants, half of the project’s 25 homes have been repaired, according to the MacArthur Foundation.

“This block in particular represents the struggles of so many, not only in Englewood, but in other Black neighborhoods that have dealt with these historic discriminatory housing practices,” Johnson said in a “Chicago Tonight” interview in 2024. “In order to create more Black homeowners, you really have to support the existing Black homeowners.”

Johnson also participated in WTTW’s Firsthand: Segregation project, where she delivered a talk on how attending a diverse high school taught her empathy and expanded her worldview while at the same time revealing the impact of segregation.

Previous recent MacArthur Fellows based in Chicago include artist and architect Amanda Williams, sociologist Reuben Jonathan Miller, jazz cellist and composer Tomeka Reid, statistician Rina Foygel Barber, fiction writer Ling Ma and multimedia artist Ebony G. Patterson.

Contact Eunice Alpasan: [email protected]

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