DAVENPORT, IOWA.- This winter, the Figge Art Museum presents Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight, an immersive exhibition that brings ancestral storytelling into the present through glass, sound, and light. On view February 14 through August 2, 2026, the exhibition invites visitors to step inside an Indigenous creation story that continues to shape how people understand their world, their communities, and themselves.
Rooted in Tlingit oral tradition, the exhibition centers on Raven, a powerful trickster figure who transforms the world by releasing light. Rather than treating this story as something fixed in the past, Singletary approaches it as a living narrative, one that evolves as it is retold, reimagined, and shared across generations. His glass sculptures, paired with music, soundscapes, and immersive imagery, create an environment where story is not simply observed, but experienced.
As visitors embark on a multisensory journey from darkness into light, they move through the galleries, following the Raven’s path as the world shifts from shadow into illumination. The exhibition unfolds as a sequence of environments, echoing the structure of oral storytelling itself, layered, rhythmic, and communal.
“What excites me about this exhibition is how naturally it invites people to experience it together,” said Melissa Mohr, Executive Director and CEO of the Figge Art Museum. “Opening Raven and the Box of Daylight on a Second Saturday, when admission is free and the museum is filled with movement, music, and making, sets the tone for how this story has always been shared: openly, across generations, and in community.”
This exhibition reflects Singletary’s decades-long practice at the intersection of Indigenous storytelling and contemporary glass.
Singletary, an internationally acclaimed artist of Tlingit heritage, is known for fusing European glassblowing techniques with Northwest Coast Indigenous design principles. By working in glass, a material shaped by breath, heat, and time, he expands expectations of what Indigenous art can be, while honoring the cultural knowledge embedded in formline design, animal spirits, and imagery of transformation.
“Singletary’s use of glass allows the story to feel both intimate and expansive,” said Vanessa Sage, Co-Senior Curator at the Figge Art Museum. “The material carries light, movement, and reflection in ways that mirror how stories move through communities, shaped by many voices and open to interpretation.”
Through Singletary’s work, visitors are invited to slow down, follow the story, and consider how meaning is shaped over time and shared over time, through art, memory, and community experience.
