"With this body of work, Beau intended to launch his most overt critique of a system that he knew was unsustainable, in favour of a return to the cultural values of his people, and his profound generosity compelled him to share these values as widely as possible." ? LaTiesha FazakasBeau Dick (1955 - 2017) was celebrated far beyond his hometown of Alert Bay, B.C., for both his political activism and his creation of striking, larger-than-life carved masks inspired by the traditional stories of the Kwakwaka'wakw. Dick's multi-faceted engagement with Kwakwaka'wakw culture included carving (which he learned from Northwest Coast artists such as Henry Hunt, Doug Cranmer, and Bill Reid), storytelling, and dancing. As a high-ranking member of Hamat'sa, the prestigious Kwakwaka'wakw secret society centred on the story of a ravenous, man-eating spirit, Dick drew on all these art forms to create regalia for and participate in elaborate ceremonies that enacted Kwakwaka'wakw cosmology. Devoured by Consumerism shares nearly two dozen of these masks: vivid, unforgettable creations, made with traditional and contemporary methods and materials, depicting figures like Cannibal Raven, Nu-Tla-Ma (Fool Dancer), and Bookwus (Wild Man of the Woods).Texts by LaTiesha Fazakas, John Cussans, and Candice Hopkins outline the stories that the masks depict, consider the inescapable parallels between Hamat'sa and the consumerism of capitalist society, and grapple with the philosophy that animates Hamat'sa - one that seeks to confront and, ultimately, master the voracious appetites inside us all.

Beau Dick: Devoured by Consumerism

Arts & Photography

CUSSANS, JOHN

Fazakas, LaTiesha

Speck, Cole

Hunt, Alan

History & Criticism

Figure 1 Publishing

Bruce Springsteen: The Illustrated Biography (Illustrated Biography Collectors)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

DAEDALUS

Tracking the zombie from Hollywood back to its origins in the voodoo folklore of Haiti.
There are zombies among us! From the rotting hordes of TV's The Walking Dead to the blockbuster nightmares of World War Z and 28 Days Later, our popular culture is overrun with the ravenous undead.
But where do these strange creatures come from, and what peculiar tales of mesmerism, freemasonry, pig sacrifice and revolution would they tell if they could talk?
Artist and writer John Cussans tracks the zombie from Hollywood back to its origins in the voodoo folklore of Haiti, a Caribbean island with a history that is a strange composite of fact and fantasy in the long struggle for independence from colonial intrusion.
Turning a keen eye on the way Haiti has provoked mysterious images in the popular culture of the twentieth century, Cussans asks how the sensational imaginings of William Seabrook, Graham Greene, and Wes Craven, among others, have served to inform impressions of the country on the world stage, and in turn, how these representations might have influenced the way that Haiti formulates an image of itself.
Cussans weaves fascinating stories from the most significant moments of the country's past, through the slave uprisings of the Bois Caïman in the eighteenth century to Papa Doc Duvalier's reign of terror in the 1960s and beyond.
At once a visceral analysis of dubious racial myth, pop-cultural history and philosophical provocation, Undead Uprising asks how ecstatic ritual, voodoo possession, zombie labourers, and meddling spirits have come to meld Haiti's f national identity for better or worse.

Undead Uprising: Haiti, Horror and The Zombie Complex

Humor & Entertainment

Movies

Strange Attractor Press

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Books by CUSSANS, JOHN