Bennett Awards worked collaboratively with the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) to create new custom awards for their Founders Award. Now in its 20th year, MoPOP is a leading-edge nonprofit museum in Seattle, dedicated to the ideas and risk-taking that fuel contemporary pop culture. Since 2007, the Museum of Pop Culture Founders Award has celebrated artists whose noteworthy contributions continue to nurture the next generation of risk-takers.
Bennett Awards worked with MoPOP to create a new unique custom award design for their 2020 Founders Award. The award design is based both on the MoPOP logo and on the iconic architecture of the Museum of Pop Culture building. The physical design of the award is a 3D interpretation of the MoPOP logo. The awards are fabricated, and combine steel and aluminum with different finishes to replicate the look of the MoPOP building. The unique architecture behind the building involved detailed engineering, which was the inspiration for the machined engineered approach to the awards.
The 2020 recipients of these unique custom awards were the Seattle rock icons ‘Alice in Chains’, consisting of band members Jerry Cantrell, Sean Kinney, William Duvall, Mike Inez, Layne Staley and Mike Starr. Past receipts of the Museum of Pop Culture’s Founders Award include Brandi Carlile, John Fogerty, The Doors, Joe Walsk, Jimmy Page, Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Carlos Santana, Buddy Guy, Billy Cox, Steve Cropper, Robbie Robertson, Ann & Nancy Wilson.
The band members were presented with their awards at a special streaming event held December 1, 2020. The event featured performances by award recipients Alice In Chains, as well as tribute performances from Chris Chaney (Jane’s Addiction), Billy Corgan (The Smashing Pumpkins), Dallas Green (City and Colour), Fishbone, Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters), KORN, Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees, Mad Season), Ann Wilson, Duff McKagan (Guns n’ Roses), Mastodon, Metallica, Dave Navarro, Krist Novoselic (Nirvana, Giants in the Trees), Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Kim Thayil (Soundgarden), Nancy Wilson, and the debut musical performance of Lily Cornell Silver (daughter of Chris Cornell and Susan Silver), among many others. The event also featured appearances from members of Pearl Jam, Sammy Hagar, Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave), Les Claypool, Robert Downey Jr., and many more. The full broadcast can be seen at: https://youtu.be/7zTIF6CM1tI