Collab of the Year Award for Bimma Williams
by cedric mitchell
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In 2025, I was commissioned to design and fabricate the Collab of the Year Award for Bimma Williams, an honor created to recognize collaborations that move culture forward through intention, authenticity, and long-term impact.
That year’s award was presented to Nigel Sylvester, whose work exemplifies the kind of collaboration Bimma has consistently championed. Partnerships that are not transactional, but rooted in trust, shared vision, and cultural authorship. Nigel’s career has shown how personal narrative, community, and craft can live inside global platforms without losing integrity.
Designing an Object That Carries Meaning
From the beginning, the goal was not to create a conventional trophy. This award needed to function as a cultural object. Something that reflected the values behind the recognition itself. Collaboration, as Bimma frames it, is about alignment over aesthetics and longevity over momentary attention.
The award was hand blown in my Los Angeles studio, using glass as both material and metaphor. Transparency speaks to honesty in partnership. Weight and balance reference shared responsibility. The form brings multiple elements together into a unified presence, mirroring how meaningful collaborations are built over time.
Collaboration as Cultural Practice
Bimma’s work has consistently pushed conversations around collaboration beyond branding and into authorship. The Collaboration of the Year Award exists to honor creatives who use partnerships as a way to expand culture, not dilute it.
Designing this piece was an extension of that philosophy. It was about giving physical form to something that is often invisible. The labor, trust, and creative risk that sit behind successful collaborations.
Closing
This award stands as a reminder that collaboration, when approached with care and intention, deserves to be celebrated with the same level of thought as the work it produces. Creating this object for Bimma and honoring Nigel’s contribution to culture was less about recognition and more about permanence. An artifact that holds meaning beyond the moment it was presented.