Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas will speak in the Brown Bag Lunch series on Wednesday, October 7, 2015. His talk is entitled “A Musing of Haida Manga.”

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is an award-winning visual contemporary artist and author. His work has been featured in public spaces, museums, galleries and private collections across North America, Europe Asia, Australia and the Middle East. Institutional collections include the British Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, Calgary’s Glenbow Museum and Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology. His large sculptural works are part of the public art collection of the City of Vancouver, City of Kamloops and University of British Columbia. Yahgulanaas’ publications include national bestsellers Flight of the Hummingbird and RED, a Haida Manga.

Yahgulanaas became a full-time artist after many decades working in the Haida Nation’s successful campaign to protect its biocultural diversity; however, he began to play as an artist much earlier. As the descendant of iconic artists Isabella Edenshaw, Charles Edenshaw and Delores Churchill, his early training was under exceptional creators and master carvers of talented lineage. It wasn’t until the late 1990’s after an exposure to Chinese brush techniques, under the tutelage of Cantonese master Cai Ben Kwan, that he consciously began to merge Haida and Asian artistic influences into his self-taught practice, and innovated the art form called “Haida Manga.”

In this open-ended conversation at Bard Graduate Center, Yahgulanaas will discuss some of the research methods he employs while preparing to create contemporary artworks. In particular, he will report on current efforts to investigate pigments, papers, and other materials used on both sides of the North Pacific over the past couple of centuries.

Coffee and tea will be served; attendees are welcome to bring their own lunch.

RSVP is required.