There is also a pop-culture take on First Nations style copper shields - but realized from the car hoods (“Coppers from the Hood”),.  

The July 10 opening will take place on the Museum grounds, with a picnic and music by THREE local bands: The Byrd Sisters; Jamie Thomson and the Culturally Modified; and Sister Says.

The Bryd Sisters are three Haida women who have joined together as sisters and, like their bird-relatives, share a love of singing and drumming. The Bryd Sisters are Itlqujatqut’aas, Lori Davis (Dadens Ravens, yahgu janaas), Guulangwas, Jacqueline Hans (Skidegate Eagles, Gidins, Naa-Ewans Xyadaga), and Gid7ahl-gudsllay, Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson (Skedans Ravens, gak’yaals kiigawaay).

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, shown with one of his new auto-part-based sculptures, fuses pop and Haida cultures. Alex Waterhouse-Hayward photo.

His dual careers reflect that consciousness. After briefly studying art in Vancouver in the mid-1970s, Yahgulanaas returned to Haida Gwaii to assist acclaimed painter, carver, and printmaker Robert Davidson on a significant totem-pole commission. While occasionally participating in other such projects, he spent much of the 1980s and '90s dedicated to public service and political activism. For a period, he was an elected chief councillor for the Haida, and he also sat on numerous committees, negotiating jurisdictional disputes between the Haida and various levels of government. "I was working with other people in the community on issues related to the land, social justice, offshore oil, and gas transport, these sorts of things," he says. By 2000, however, he felt he could return full-time to his art-making. "What's really good about it is that the art is informed by that experience," he says. "The exploration of the edge."

Yahgulanaas began creating pop-graphic narratives, riffing on traditional Haida stories and painting techniques, and quickly developed the distinctive art form for which he is most widely known. "I started off trying to do comic books because comic books are about accessibility," he says. Karen Duffek, MOA's curator of contemporary visual arts, adds, "Michael brings together his own version of the language and imagery of Haida painting with the mass-circulation and graphic aspects of Japanese manga." A tricksterlike sense of humour contributes to his work's appeal, Duffek observes. Yahgulanaas's books include A Tale of Two Shamans , The Last Voyage of the Black Ship , and Hachidori , a bestseller in Japan.