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Announcing the 2025 USA Fellows

50 artists working in All Stages, All Ways, Always.

2025 USA Fellowship announcement, with logo and multi-tone graphic imagery in the background and the tagline: Artists. All ways. Always. Tagline framed in the outline of concentric circles filled with an undulating wave of pink, brown, and purple stripes. Lavender background and green frond-like shapes framing the outer perimeter of the image.
Date -01.30.2025

In 2025, USA enters its 20th year of commitment to durable, sustainable support to artists and creative practitioners in All Stages, in All Ways, Always. This year, we are thrilled to award a new cohort of USA Fellows, fifty exceptional artists and collectives working in ten disciplines in twenty-one US states, spanning the most nascent to mature stages of careers. While awarded in specific disciplines, many of their practices push against and expand these definitions. They create in direct response to the places they call home and remain committed to these communities. Often, they are collaborators, following the adage that we go further, together. 

Meet the 2025 Fellows
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Place and Practice

This year’s Fellows center origin and belonging, many honoring work that explores regional specificity. This year’s class represents four native Hawaiian artists and/or collaboratives, and twelve Indigenous artists/collaboratives. This makes the 2025 fellowship one of our most highly indexed for representation of identities that precede constitutional nationality. 

  • A Latinx man with a short beard wearing a yellow t-shirt and a black beanie holding a microphone on a stand.

    Rudi Goblen, Theater Artist, Miami, Florida.

    Photo by Deyson Rodriguez.

  • A South Asian Filipina woman woman with shoulder-length dark brown hair sits in a white rocking chair in front of a lake. She is barefoot and birdwatching, holding binoculars and wearing a metallic ankle-length dress.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil, writer, Oxford, Mississippi

    Photo by Caroline Beffa.

  • Two musicians are performing on a small stage, one seated at a drum kit and one standing with a guitar. They are lit by overhead spotlights that create a striking, moody atmosphere. The background is adorned with an expansive wall of LED lights, arranged in a grid of dots, which glow in a gradient, shifting from green on the left to blue and purple on the right. Microphones, stands, and other equipment are visible. The overall mood is vibrant and immersive, blending live music with a visually compelling light display.

    Myles de Bastion (right), Technical Artist, Musician, and Creative Altruist, Portland, Oregon.

    Photo courtesy of the artist.

  • A view from above of woman sitting on a maroon cushion. Behind her is a wide array of play scripts printed on white paper.

    Rhiana Yazzie, Playwright and Filmmaker, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

    Photo by Andrea Fairbanks.

  • A bald Black man with a beard stands in front of a camera set up. The screen reveals a close up of his eyes.

    Dr. Rashaad Newsome, Multidisciplinary Artist, Oakland, California.

    Photo by Andrés Gallegos.

  • A portrait of a figure in a light-filled, and otherwise empty, industrial brick building. Wearing a neon pink sweatsuit, she laughs and leans on a wooden ladder.

    Sadie Barnette, Visual Artist, California.

    Photo courtesy of the artist.

  • A Black woman in a hard hat and safety vest reviewing architectural plans for an installation.

    Karyn Olivier, Sculptor and Public Artist, Philadelphia, reviewing blue prints for a project.

    Photo courtesy of the artist.

  • A person with medium-tone skin wearing a long forest-green garment playing the viola under trees with other musicians in the background.

    Leilehua Lanzilotti, Composer and Multimedia Artist, Honolulu, Hawaii.

    Photo by Sam Lee.

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Discipline and Identity

USA supports artists in all practices and at all stages of their career across disciplines and depth within disciplines, from theatrical set design to metalsmithing. Artists that make work informed by their identities — creating art that engages disability justice, cultural preservation, and beyond.

  • A performer stands and holds up a large paper puppet with her extended right arm. The puppet has paper limbs coming out from his chest. Its discarded limbs are scattered around the wooden floor around the performer’s feet.

    Performance by Nami Yamamoto, Choreographer, Dancer, Puppeteer, Brooklyn, New York.

    Photo by Diego Quintanar.

  • A bald Black man hammers a glowing red piece of iron around a cone in a vice as five students look on. They are standing in a blacksmithing shop filled with tools and a flaming coal forge.

    David Harper Clemons, Metalsmith and Multidisciplinary Artist, Bakersville, North Carolina, demonstrates a technique as students look on.

    Photo by Robin Dreyer.

  • A woman stands at the front of a large classroom. Participants fill the stadium style seating, facing forward.

    Joan Naviyuk Kane, Writer, Portland, Oregon, answers questions at a podium at the University of Zurich.

    Photo by Association of Anglophone Postcolonial Studies.

  • A woman with long dark hair seated at a loom. The photo is shot from underneath the loom's threading, so the vertical warp threads form a blue-green veil over her face.

    Sarah Rosalena, Digital Craft, Los Angeles, California, poses with her loom.

    Photo by Mike Vitelli.

  • A laughing man sits at a table with a white table cloth holding a glass of red wine. He is covered in spaghetti and spaghetti sauce.

    Geoff Sobelle, Theater Artist, New York, New York.

    Photo by Maria Baranova.

  • A Black man works at a large industrial machine. He is photographed through the equipment, showing his intent gaze through machinery that is out of focus in the foreground.

    Sherrill Roland, Multidisciplinary Artist, Durham, North Carolina.

    Photo by Dr. J Caldwell.

  • A small group of people stand on either side of a chic modern looking hallway lined with tape, indicating it to be a performance space. A central figure stands at the back wall with their head slightly bowed.

    Trajal Harrell, Dancer-Choreographer, Douglas, Georgia, in the moment just before a performance begins.

    Photo by Orfeas Emirzas.

  • A woman with a gray bob, light complexion, and clear-colored glasses sits at a dining room table covered in sound equipment including a small keyboard, a soundboard, two speakers, and a computer monitor.

    Liz Phillips, Interactive Sound Artist, Sunnyside, New York, working at home on performance for Fridman Gallery.

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Collectives and Collaboratives

The future is mutual aid. In times of scarcity, artists are creating abundance by pooling their resources, whether operating as collectives or individual contributors to large scale projects. Three collectives representing seven people also give important platforms for our youngest fellows in the 2025 class. 

  • A group of people participate in an interactive activity, holding and weaving long blue-and-orange ribbons together in a web-like formation that stretches across a small gallery space. They form a circle, some standing and others crouching. Behind them is a large black-and-white mural of uniformed figures standing in a row facing us.

    Collaborative Hypar Workshop at Gallery 400 in Chicago by Borderless Studio, Architecture and Design Studio, San Antonio TX.

    Photo by Brandon Fields.

  • 3.2 Makini

    Let 'im Move You: Intervention by Makini, Choreographer and World Builder, Durham NC.

  • An outdoor gathering where a great terracotta colored statue of Huehueteotl, the Mesoamerican God of Fire, is being revealed from behind a gray tarp. This monumental, fifteen-foot cement figure is adorned with an enormous rhombus shaped headwear and disc-like earrings. The god opens his mouth playfully, exposing his top row of teeth and protruding tongue. The crowd surrounding the sculpture are vibrantly dressed in colorful feathers and patterns.

    Cesar Viveros, Multidisciplinary Traditional Artist, unveils a sculpture in Philadelphia.

    Photo by Manuel Vasquez.

  • A smiling, bearded Indian man wearing a pink beanie and a blue kurta patterned with pink flowers, speaks to a rehearsal room, his hand outstretched, illustrating something. A woman sitting next to him looks at him warmly.

    Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Theater Director, Brooklyn NY.

    Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

  • Three Black people in a large white-walled room with dark wood floors and large windows dance, throwing their arms back, kicking their left legs back, and tilting their heads forward. One queer Filipinx person in brightly-colored clothing and a face mask sits on the floor next to a microphone and watches them dance.

    Anna Martine Whitehead, Interdisciplinary Performance-Based Artist, Chicago IL.

    Photo by Ricardo Adame.

  • Seen in silhouette, a woman stands in a dark home office illuminated by a single window. Framed in the daylight, the woman stands in profile as she speaks into a microphone.

    Nichole Canuso, Choreographer, in her office/studio in South Philadelphia.

  • An older woman in a light-colored blouse and a younger man wearing a cap and a striped overshirt stand behind a table with baskets on it and prize ribbons below.

    Theresa Secord, Penobscot Basketry Artist, Farmington ME.

    Photo by Lauren Hoffman.

  • A person with a buzz cut wearing a KF94 mask, fluorescent lime shirt, and a floral fisherman-style vest poses next to a bright blue bench. Handwriting on the bench in white reads, "I wish this city was more hospitable to my body's needs. Rest here if you agree."

    Finnegan Shannon, Artist, Brooklyn, NY, with their installation of In New York, Thinking of You at The FLAG Art Foundation, 2023.

    Photo by Steven Probert.

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Geography of 2025 USA Fellows

The 2025 Fellows hail from Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.

A map of the United States. Twenty-one states are colored purple to indicate at least one USA Fellow lives there.

About the Selection Process

The 2025 USA Fellows were selected from a group of nearly 500 artists and collectives. Seven hundred were nominated. Each year, a geographically diverse and rotating group of artists, scholars, critics, producers, curators, and other arts professionals who are active in their respective communities anonymously nominate individual artists and collaboratives to apply. This wide network of nominators identifies a diverse cohort of artists across disciplines and communities who demonstrate strong artistic innovation and make significant contributions to our cultural ecosystem. Ten discipline-specific panels review applications and identify finalists, which are then approved by our Board of Trustees. Learn more about the USA Fellowship.

Thank You to Our Generous Funders

Annette and Paul Smith, Anonymous, Barr Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, David Horvitz and Francie Bishop Good, Doris Duke Foundation, Ford Foundation, Good Chaos, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Katie Weitz, PhD, Mellon Foundation, Miranda Family Fund, Opportunity Fund, Poetry Foundation, Pilot House Associates, Rasmuson Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, Sarah Arison, The Ford Family Foundation, The Heinz Endowments, The Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation, Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts, Todd and Betiana Simon, and Windgate Charitable Foundation.

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