Mischief Making

SEPTEMBER 2021

160 pages, 9 x 11 in., 117 colour illus., 11 b&w illus. 978-0-7748-6736-8 PB $32.95 USD / £19.99 GBP also available as an e-book

INDIGENOUS ART / CANADIAN ART

NICOLA LEVELL is a curator and an associate professor of museum and visual anthropology at the University of British Columbia. MICHAEL NICOLL YAHGULANAAS is a visual artist and author. He is the creator of Haida manga, an artistic genre that crosses cultures and disciplines.

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Art, and the Seriousness of Play

Nicola Levell, with Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas; foreword by Nobuhiro Kishigimi

In a gorgeously illustrated exploration of the art of Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Mischief Making disproves any notion that play is frivolous. Deploying playful and punning tactics, Yahgulanaas shines a spotlight on serious topics. Expressive and exuberant, comic and imaginative: these characteristics suffuse the work of the internationally recognized creator of Haida manga. His distinctive style stretches, twists, and flips the formlines of classic Haida art to create imagery that resonates with the graphic vitality of Asian manga. Mischief Making delineates the evolution of the artist’s visual practice into a uniquely hybrid aesthetic, uncovering its philosophical underpinnings. This engaging, beautiful book reveals the artist’s deep understanding of the seriousness of play. As he investigates the intersections of Indigenous and other world views, the politics of land, cultural heritage, and global ecology, Yahgulanaas disrupts the expected, allowing different ways of experiencing, knowing, and seeing the world to emerge.

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