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The aesthetic sensibilities of the Haida are some of the most iconic and easily recognizable, a wealth of modern artists bringing the bold styles of their people to modern audiences. From their legendary totem poles to their striking palettes of red, black, and white to powerful linework filled with character to the depiction of the supernatural and natural worlds intertwined,  its form captivates effortlessly. The Vancouver Art Gallery has put forth one of the most respected artists in this vein with their exhibition Guud san glans Robert Davidson: A Line That Bends But Does Not Break.

Guud san glans Robert Davidson has been an active artist within British Colombia and across Canada since the 60s. Early in his career, he mentored under the equally renowned Bill Reid, a Haida artist specializing in carving whose design was posthumously honoured on Canada’s two-dollar coin in 2020. That decade saw Davidson carving and raising the first totem pole in nearly a century on Haida Gwaii, an archipelago and Haida Heritage Site off of BC’s coast. His commitment to preserving and spreading his culture is clear, his style being dubbed contemporary-traditional through its cross-pollination of cultural lineage and modern directive.

The works on display at The VAG are strong indicators of the modern Haida style at large but especially the impactful sharpness of Davidson’s unique identity within this paradigm. In such works as 1983’s Raven Finned Killer Whale, we see a cultural fingerprint prevalent across Haida artists (the killer whale denoting, amongst other things, family, community, and protection), but a distinct vision of this touchstone through Davidson’s larger-than-life dimension to the creature. It mesmerizes and almost dwarfs the viewer, even with the print being only of modest size.

Across each decade we see a spirit of innovation throughout the works presented in the exhibition. One of the most obvious places Davidson’s modern sensibilities are spotted is in the keenly verbose titles of pieces throughout the 90s and 00s. The World is as Sharp as the Edge of a Knife (1993) is as its title suggests, which stems from a Haida proverb that continues: “As you go along you have to be careful or you will fall off one side or the other.” There is a cutting edge to the geometric symmetry displayed in this work, but also a spacious, Earthly quality to its deep blue. It is at once expansive and a razor. Equally striking are the works across Davidson’s focus on red—varying shades of deep crimson that seer with a visceral poignancy that the VAG has brilliantly positioned along contrasting walls that make works like Occupied hard to look away from.

Robert Davidson, The World is as Sharp as the Edge of a Knife, 1993, screenprint on paper, Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of Mr. Derek Simpkins

In his most recent years, Davidson’s work feels like he takes the traditional figures that have travelled—across his career and from his roots—alongside him and extracts them into looser, more ambiguous parameters. The results, especially in tracking one’s way through the exhibition, make for a sort of re-introduction; seeing an old acquaintance after a significant portion of time has changed the way you look at them. And by no means do these works feel anything less like Davidson. They are simply evidence of how this artist has always endeavoured to progress his process.

Guud san glans Robert Davidson: A Line That Bends But Does Not Break is an experience both intellectual and spiritual. Davidson treads a unique course through the context of his own heritage and through the sensibilities of the modern art world to give something that does justice to both. With such evocative expressions of abstract shape and resolute colour, the depictions of a realm somewhere beyond our own are “a masterclass in the Haida language of forms” and not a collection to be missed.

Last week saw the close of Neptune Theatre’s most recent production, Annie Valentina’s new play Ballad of the Motherland. And while the window of opportunity may be closed for now on this production, this work’s impact cannot be understated in the day we live. Through its fearless reimagining of a chillingly relevant news story from 2014, Valentina brings forth a narrative that serves as a claustrophobic window into the looming presence of Russian over Ukrainian identity.

Centring around the character of Kate (played by Hannah Wayne-Philips), Ballad of the Motherland tells the story of a small-time Canadian blogger of Ukrainian-Russian descent on a writing internship in 2014 before being kidnapped by Russian separatists. Kate is then under the unrelenting and fervid watch of Volodya (played by Nikolai Afanasev) in an underground bunker. Split between Kate’s post-event narration as detailed to an unseen interviewer and her time spent captured, the story paces with an imperceptible yet weighty flow of time and through her conversations with Volodya and her afterthoughts, grappling with themes of identity, belonging, nationalism, violence, and family.

Valentina has long been a fixture in the Halifax theatre community and here she has crafted a work that strikes a chord between her as an individual and the fraught tension ongoing between Russian and Ukraine. Her writing scintillates in the dark and dusty pocket of the world she has crafted. Kate’s voice is one of genuine desire for insight and a thoughtfulness even of her own miserable situation. Through her proud outsider perspective, we are privy to thoughts on queerness, familial rebellion, and a seemingly unflappable spark of hope, or at least survival.

Photo by Stoo Metz; courtesy of Neptune Theatre.

Valentina creates an equally memorable voice in the unquestioning toxicity of paramilitary jailer Volodya—in him we see an expression of regressiveness (both textually and physically through his assault on Kate) as well as a steadfast sense of honour and tradition, however skewed they may be. We feel terror after terror from this young soldier, but through the playwright’s uncompromising aims for depicting honest humanity, not to mention the vibrant chemistry created between Wayne-Philips’ resolute understanding and Afanasev’s volatile stoicism, the audience is tasked with empathizing, even when faced with the unforgivable.

The design of this production paired perfectly with this intimate spectacle of dread. Wes Babcock presented a space that immediately evoked the reality of a sullied cell, Jess Lewis’ lighting and Jordan Palmer’s projection designs made for fascinating tools of narrative division as well as a strong heightening of reality, and Kaelen MacDonald’s costuming was subtle but impactful (the use of a Blockbuster t-shirt as a nod to Ukraine’s blue and yellow was a phenomenal touch). Every element of this show supported the reality of Valentina’s narrative that all too unfortunately resonates so much more now than when she first started in 2014.

Ballad of the Motherland is a class act in contained storytelling, and one of immediate and tangible importance to our current world. There are timeless explorations of issues of corrupt nationalism, unquestioned normalization of misogyny, and what one will do to survive; Annie Valentina’s voice shines most especially in these veins. But this play, through the fault of humanity’s propensity for violent expansion, has become a story that deserves hearing across the globe.