Pedal to the Meddle

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is interested in the way cultures – both colonizing and colonized – are defined by collections. This is one of the ideas that led to the creation of Pedal to the Meddle, which originally mounted a Bill Reid 1985 canoe upside down on the roof of a reclaimed and reworked Pontiac Firefly covered in a mixture of black paint and argillite dust. Yahgulanaas likes to create opportunities for his audience to connect with the familiar and yet to challenge prevailing stereotypes. The original Pontiac was an 18th-century leader of the Ottawa people, famous for opposing the British occupation of the Great Lakes region. Pontiac’s War (1763-1766) was the most successful First Nations resistance to the European invasion.

Pedal to the Meddle is embellished with Haïda Manga, the pop-graphic style which has become the distinctive art form for which Yahgulanaas is most widely known. Haïda Manga mixes Haïda narratives and graphic forms with Asian comic-book style known as Manga. Haïda Manga stories are totem pole-like imagery morphed into undulating panels filled with contemporary references.