The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has named its 2023 “Genius Grant Fellows” writes Thalia Beaty for Fortune. 

MacArthur Fellows are nominated and endorsed by their peers and communities, and each one receives an $800,000 grant to spend over five years.  

“The prize Is financial, but it’s also access and being part of a community of extraordinary thinkers and doers,” said Marlies Carruth, director of the MacArthur Fellows program.  

Among this year’s 20 MacArthur Fellows is Philadelphia native, Carolyn Lazard. 

Lazard is an artist whose installations and performances explore the topics of disability, health and medicine including through the use of accessibility practices.  

Lazard often repurposes ready-made objects and calls attention to the dependencies and infrastructures of care that sustain social life.  

In addition to their work as an artist, Lazard also writes about their experiences dealing with chronic illness, as well as the limitations of biomedical understandings of health.  

The MacArthur Foundation has run the fellowship since 1981 and has selected more than 1,000 recipients to date.  

The fellowships are awarded to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.  

Read more about this year’s class of MacArthur Genius Grant recipients in Fortune.

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Artist Carolyn Lazard and curator, Meg Onli discuss the process behind Long Take.