Where the Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art by Karen Duffek, Bill McLennan and Jordan Wilson has won this year's Vancouver Book Award.
The book, published by Vancouver's Figure 1, brings together some 80 contemporary Indigenous knowledge holders with historical Northwest Coast art. Elders, artists, scholars and other community members share their thoughts about stone tools, woven baskets, carved masks and the like at the UBC Museum of Anthropology.
The award, created in 1989, comes with a cash prize of $3,000 and recognizes books in any genre.
The finalists included another book about art, Occupying Chinatown, by Paul Wong, Debbie Cheung and Christopher Lee. It focuses on several artworks by Wong that explore Chinese Canadian identity and Vancouver's Chinese communities.
The other finalists were Erase and Rewind, by Meghan Bell; Henry Doyle's No Shelter; and Grace Eiko Thomson's Chiru Sakura – Falling Cherry Blossoms.
Previous winners include Catherine B. Clement for Chinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yucho Chow; Robert Watt and Susan Point for People Among the People: The public art of Susan Point; and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Karen Duffek and Tania Willard for Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun: Unceded Territories.
Source: City of Vancouver
