Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

 

RE ME MB ER
A presentation and discussion with
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas was held
Wednesday, 27 August, at SFU Harbour Centre
7 pm in the Fletcher Challenge Theatre
Admission was Free; Seat Reservations were Required

 

“[His] paintings . . . represent a contemporary Haida inquiry into image and narrative . . . and they link Haida and non-Haida concerns through a popular culture medium.”

– Karen Duffek (UBC Museum of Anthropology, Curator of Contemporary Visual Art)

Michael Yahgulanaas was born born in Prince Rupert in 1954 and raised in Delkatla, on Haida Gwaii. He has exhibited work around the world and currently has collections at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, as well as at the Kawasaki City Manga Museum in Japan.

Michael Yahgulanaas is the father of Haida Manga, which re-frames traditional Haida images by adapting them into Japanese manga-styled stories. His style denotes his propensity to “play the edge between the neighbourhoods,” a talent he learned growing up as a light-haired, green-eyed kid in a Haida community. True to that duality, his work expresses his social and environmental concerns with a “trickster-like sense of humour” (The Georgia Straight).

He is also known for his numerous published works including A Lousy Tale, an adaptation of the Haida narrative “Raven Who Kept Walking,” as well as A Tale of Two Shamans (Theytus Books) and The Last Voyage of the Black Ship (Tales of Raven and Western Canadian Wilderness Committee).

Most recently, he has received notice for the publication of The Flight of the Hummingbird (Douglas & McIntyre), in which his vibrant illustrations express the story of the determined hummingbird who, despite her size, attempts to save her forest home when it is threatened by a violent fire.

In Remember, each panel uses a letter (R, E, and so on) to morph into a formline that becomes the subtext; the subject of the work as a whole is the connections between memory, or what seems to be memory—of individuals, of a place, of an ancient civilization—and the experience of loss, of longing, of anger, of judgement. In Yahgulanaas’ own words:
“I want to find a way to see memory not as a distance but as a post-it note, a reminder to recover those distant elements. If it is longing, is there a way to revive that element and bring it to the living moment? If it is tragedy, what can I do about it here and now?”

You can view an animation of Yahgulanaas’ new book, Flight of the Hummingbird, here. More of Yahgulanaas’ work can be seen here or read his comics, blog, and reviews here.

Remember Project

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Brought to you bY THE GEIST FOUNDATION IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: