The trophies presented to the W Awards winners 2024 were commissioned by Phyllis Lambert, founder of the CCA and winner of the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize 2023
This year’s W Awards trophies were created by asinnajaq, an Inuk artist based in Montreal, Canada.
In a tradition dating from 2019, the trophies presented to the winners of the W Awards are commissioned by the previous year’s Ada Louise Huxtable Prize winner: in this case the winner of the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize 2023 Phyllis Lambert. Named after New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, this prize recognises the contribution of an individual working in the expanded architectural field.
Lambert chose to work with Inuk artist asinnajaq, who has created a series of record sleeves, a medium ‘that can hold precious notes’ and is typically adorned with striking artwork. Each sleeve is printed with photographs of water and rock taken around the artist’s homelands.
Artist asinnajaq has created record sleeves printed with images taken in her homelands near Montreal in Canada
Credit: Matthieu Brouillard © CCA
For the artist, the rocks ‘hold history and take you on a journey to the moment thousands of years ago when they were once molten, shifting and becoming’, while water is ‘as gentle as it is hard, as nourishing as it can be brutal and smothering’. The images are reminders that we are connected to the universe, and that ‘we are all both so new and ancient’.
The images were captured on a trip that was ‘so full of sunshine, sea air and energy – it is a pleasure to share it to honour the hard work and dedication of the awardees.’ asinnajaq’s practice deconstructs the misconception of the Arctic as a frozen and barren landscape, centring ritual, human rights activism and Indigenous knowledge.
The images of water and rock adorn record sleeves, which typically feature striking artwork
Credit: Matthieu Brouillard © CCA
The trophies were presented to this year’s winners at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal. Nguyễn Hà was announced the winner of the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture and Jennifer Frewen the winner of the MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice for the Royal Academy of Dance in London. Trophies were also presented to the winner of the Jane Drew Prize winner Iwona Buczkowska, the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize winner Angela Davis, and the winner of the Prize for Research in Gender and Architecture Mycket.
Madelon Vriesendorp, winner of the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize 2018, began the tradition of designing and making the trophies for the W Awards (formerly the Women in Architecture awards) with her collection of four female torsos presented to the winners of the 2019 awards. That year’s Ada Louise Huxtable Prize winner was the photographer Hélène Binet, who went on to design and make a series of Diasec-mounted photographs as her trophies. The 2021 trophies were commissioned by 2020 Ada Louise Huxtable Prize winner Beatriz Colomina, who enlisted artist Cristina Iglesias to create a series of aluminium monotypes, and the 2022 trophies were created by the Accra-based artist Rania Odaymat, commissioned by the 2021 winner, writer and academic Lesley Lokko. Ada Louise Huxtable Prize 2022 winner Mona Hatoum created the trophies presented to last year’s winners: a collection of drawings UV-printed on glass and mounted on wooden cubes.
