“Let’s Talk About It,” the hardcover book featuring and preserving hundreds of social justice murals that adorned downtown Madison during the summer of 2020, has earned three Indie Book Awards, and was named a finalist for three more, according to an announcement from the book’s designer.
Designer Ian Chalgen announced in a LinkedIn post that the book was named a finalist in the categories of Art Book, Social Justice Book, and Best Overall Design, and won First Place in the categories BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and/or Persons of Color) Book, and Current Events Book. Additionally it was awarded Third Place Overall Grand Prize for Non-Fiction.
Created by Amira Caire & Daniele Mielke on Overture Center for the Arts.
“I think it just goes to show the power of the book. My first actual reaction was that the intent of the book was recognized. They got it. This organization understood what the intent of the book was. The meaning of it, the history, the implications of it. And I think that is what is important about this award,” said Nyra Jordan, who led the book’s production process. “I think for the artists it says that their work matters and their voice matters. It just basically amplifies the work that they did even further, with an award like this. My sincere hope is that they get the recognition that is deserved from this book.”
Jordan is social impact investment director at American Family Insurance, the Madison-based company that funded and managed the project. The company convened a group of community leaders last summer to ask what they could do to contribute to the ongoing dialog around racial justice.
“The question was asked, what can American Family Insurance do in this moment? What is our role as a corporation?” Jordan said. “And it was Judge Mitchell, that said, ‘honestly, right now, what you could do is preserve the murals that are downtown. This is a historical moment for Madison.’”
Jordan and her team reached out to several photographers, including Amadou Khroma and Hedi Lamarr Rudd, to photograph the murals as well as the artists who created them. They also had the artists give statements on their work, and offered the artists a suite of business tools and support to help them build their businesses as artists.
Rudd said the book has prompted important and sometimes difficult dialog.
The American Family team also had to reach out to a number of photographers who had already captured some of the art.
“Because of the dynamic nature of that situation … with murals being vandalized, and storefronts were being repaired, murals were being taken down, we realized there were some of those pieces of art that we didn’t have. So we really had to rely on photographers,” she said.
One of those photographers was Shalicia Johnson, who shared more than 30 photos she had previously taken of the murals.
“I just can’t stop smiling,” Johnson said of her reaction to the awards. “I don’t know if I expected to it to expand beyond our little city. The book is so worthy of every accolade you can think of.”
Johnson said the awards recognize the importance of the murals as much as the book itself.
“(The awards are) important to me because our voices need to be heard,” she said. “It’s not something that should be a headline that’s forgotten a couple of days, couple of weeks, couple of months later. The work that these artists did is a huge part of history, not just for our city, but for the nation.”
The Indie Book Awards are given in more than 70 categories by the Independent Book Publishing Professional Group, an international organization representing independent publishing companies.
