[Bio c. 2010]
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (MNY) AKA the “Haida-Manga guy” is an artist of indigenous and European settler ancestry, who grew up on the North Pacific islands of Haida Gwaii. Before relocating to Vancouver in 2001, for over two decades, MNY held political positions on Haida Gwaii, at a time when the Haida Nation was proactively negotiating issues of land, indigenous title and rights and contesting neo-colonialist acts of environmental exploitation. During this critical period, his early artworks, especially his politically-informed satirical and humorous cartoons, were circulating locally in various print media. More recently, his development of Haida-Manga—a distinctive and dynamic artform influenced by his technical training with master craftsmen, including Chinese brush painting master, Cai Ben Kwon—has enabled him to dessiminate, largely through publication, Haida culture, indigenous issues and wider environmental concerns to a global audience. Through transculturating Haida formlines and oral histories, with manga, the Japanese genre of graphic illustration, Haida-Manga operates as a hybrid idiom or creative creole that invigorates Haida art, extending it beyond the neo-traditional media and forms that dominate the local field of production. Now, no longer restricted to the medium of paper, Haida-Manga, which has been embraced by manga aficionados in Asia and elsewhere, circulates in multimedia productions, from painted canvases, through short animations to recycled automobile parts.
Created 2019-02-19 12:19:31 PM. Most recently updated 2019-02-19 12:19:31 PM
| Role | Project |
|---|---|
| Artist | Ethnographic Terminalia: New Orleans |