Associate Professor and Department Head, Dana Claxton, was honoured as a 2019 YWCA Woman of Distinction in the category of Arts, Culture & Design in the esteemed company of seven other nominees.
A recognized academic, media producer, director and writer, Dana challenges stereotypes of Indigenous people within her image making. In 2018, the Vancouver Art Gallery profiled her career to date in Dana Claxton: Fringing the Cube, and she has a forthcoming book on her Lakota Sioux research with the Mackenzie Art Gallery. Claxton co-founded the Indigenous Media Arts Group in 1998, which organized the first Aboriginal Film Festival in Vancouver, and as Director of the artist-run centre, the Helen Pitt Gallery, in the early 1990s, Dana curated exhibitions that featured only Indigenous women artists. Dana was awarded a fellowship from the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, and was the Ruth Wynn Woodward Research Chair in Women’s Studies at SFU.
Recognized nationally, the YWCA Women of Distinction Awards honours individuals and organizations whose outstanding activities and achievements contribute to the well-being and future of our community.
