200 Years of Haida Art

This is the show to see here in Vancouver this season! The Vancouver Art Gallery has collected together artifacts from museums and private collections from around the world and brought it all home to BC for a few short months.


Walking through the gallery you can’t not smile to see a bentwood box carved over 200 years ago sitting right next to one carved earlier this year. The dark old weathered one right next to its bright and youthful cousin. They seem to get along quite nicely.

In another room there’s a 200 year old raven mask carved by the former chief of the Raven clan on the Queen Charlotte Islands. In the case next to it is a modern raven mask carved by the current chief of the same clan. The masks have never seen each other until now, even though they are direct descendents and one inspired the other.

There’s beautiful silver bowls and bracelets, intricately woven hats and clothing, masks and totem poles. The show is laid out chronologically, so you get a great sense of the history of the Haida and how the art has developed. There’s a video of modern Haida carver Robert Davidson who says the first mask he ever made was out of a paper bag because there was nothing else to use at the time. When he began carving for real he had a profound sense of deja-vu, like he has been doing this for generations.

My favorites were the masks of Gagiid – a mythical person who fell overboard at sea but was too strong to drown. All that time in the ocean has left him a little worse for wear though, and he doesn’t quite fit into society now. Still, cool stuff.

The Haida have no word for art because all of their artifacts were used as practical everyday objects. They do though have the wonderful word, stl’iinl, which means “those with clever hands, who are good at what they do.” So, if you’re up here this summer, and want to see works by some Haida stl’iinl, check it out.






Go the the Gallery here