Joseph S. Stauffer Prizes

Current Winners

Jody Chan (Literature)

Jody Chan is a writer, drummer, community organizer, and care worker based in Toronto/Tkaronto. They are the author of haunt (Damaged Goods Press), all our futures (PANK), and sick (Black Lawrence Press), and the winner of the 2018 St. Lawrence Book Award and the 2021 Trillium Award for Poetry. Jody’s second full-length book, impact statement, is forthcoming from Brick Books in 2024. They have been a performing and teaching member with RAW Taiko Drummers since 2019. 

Bracken Corlett (Visual Arts)

Bracken Hanuse Corlett is an interdisciplinary artist from the Wuikinuxv and Klahoose Nations. He works in painting, sculpture, audiovisual performance, digital art/design, animation and narrative. A recent winner of the 2022 Portfolio Prize and the 2022 Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in Visual Arts, he also graduated from the En’owkin Centre for Indigenous Art and attended the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. He trained at the Hunt Studio with renowned Heiltsuk artist Bradley Hunt and his sons Shawn and Dean. He has exhibited, screened and performed locally and abroad with some notable work at VIFF, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, TIFF, and the Institute of Modern Art.

Jen Yakamovich (Music)

Jen Yakamovich is a drummer and percussionist who works across disciplines as an improviser, composer, educator, researcher, live performer, and session musician. Holding a master’s degree in Environmental Studies from Dalhousie University (2019), Jen is interested in the connections between sound, rhythm, and socioecological transformation. She has studied drums under Jerry Granelli and the Creative Music Workshop, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Dan Gaucher, on Galiano Island, British Columbia, and is currently studying with Susie Ibarra, in New York state. Jen grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is now based in Vancouver.