The Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) Prize is the first honor to recognize book art from across the field and around the world, celebrating the incredible diversity of this vital artform. Our jury of three distinguished leaders in the field of book arts reviewed 147 submissions from over 150 artists, representing 22 nations around the world and all 7 continents of the earth.

'Biography is an examination of the chemical elements in the human body and the roles they play elsewhere in the world. This book grew out of my desire to use the periodic table, our visual method of categorizing every particle of matter in the universe, as a tool for creating a portrait of a human being, the viewer of the book. We are composed of a finite number of elements, each of which has a rich life outside of our bodies making up critical components of the physical world and the tools that we produce and use to measure and investigate that world.

'I work in book form because of the natural relationship between the book and the communication of information. Our visual vocabulary developed simultaneously with the development of the book. They have worked together for over a thousand years to encapsulate information, to preserve it and to pass it forward. Books also allow me to present a sequence; a book must be viewed spread by spread, and consequently I am able to guide the viewer through the piece in my own way, pacing their experience with folded pages, layered imagery and text.' 

- Sarah Bryant