Alaska Native Cultural Heritage and Artistic Sovereignty in Museums
Museums throughout the world hold important collections of Alaska Native material culture. How can museums add Indigenous stories, perspectives and voices in exhibition and collection spaces? How can community members better access the material belongings that museums hold?
The Alaska Native Cultural Heritage and Artistic Sovereignty in Museums project seeks to develop opportunities for Indigenous creative intervention in museums while supporting material culture documentation through a curatorial fellowship program.
Are you interested in a learning how to be involved in this work?
Please contact The CIRI Foundation to find out how you can partner on this new initiative.
Images courtesy of the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center,
photographed by Wayde Carroll.
Pilot Project
Alaska Native Design: Parkas by Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska“For the 2020 pilot of the Alaska Native Cultural Heritage and Artistic Sovereignty in Museums Project, Amelia “Amy” Topkok was selected for the fellowship. The plan for Amy’s fellowship was first to introduce her to the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska Learning Lab site and to concepts about drawing from museum and archive collections to create free online educational resources about Alaska Native heritage, with a focus on decolonizing practices through collaboration and the primacy of Indigenous knowledge. The next stage was to co-develop a new Learning Lab education unit based on parkas, since this was the subject of her M.A. work at UAF and the focus of her planned studies for pursuing her PhD.
By the end of the fellowship, Amy and I were able to meet all of our goals and complete an education unit of excellent quality. The unit is titled “Alaska Native Design: Parkas” and presents nineteen photographs of people and museum objects with detailed captions, three essays and a lesson. There are also three additional resources, including a guide for making a qaspeq/atikłuk, written by Amy for a past workshop and now improved with additional information and editing, which she can utilize in the future. Amy and I worked together on all stages of the unit’s development and content for a truly collaborative project, resulting in comprehensive and in-depth resources.”
– Dawn Biddison
Museum Specialist
Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center
Museum Training Programs for Native Americans/Alaska Natives
The CIRI Foundation has gathered a list of museum training programs for Native Americans/Alaska Natives interested in professional development opportunities in this field. We hope to continue growing this list of programs. If you know of other related programs for Indigenous learners, please let us know.
- Canadian Museum of History’s RBC Indigenous Internship Program
- Institute for American Indian Studies Internship Opportunities (Remote and Traditional)
- Minnesota Historical Society’s Native American Undergraduate Museum Fellowship
- Peabody Essex Museum’s Native American Fellowship Program
- School for Advanced Research’s Ann Ray Internship for Museum Studies
- Smithsonian Institute’s Museum Training Program
- Smithsonian Institute’s Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology
- University of California Berkeley’s Native American Museum Studies Institute: Professional Development Training for Tribal Museum Professionals
- University of Denver’s Ethical Stewardship of Native American Collections Postgraduate Curatorial Training Program
Indigenous Curatorial Fellowship
The CIRI Foundation is pleased to announce a partnership with the University of Alaska Museum of the North to support an Indigenous Curatorial Fellowship in the Ethnology and History department. The fellowship will provide an opportunity for a student to gain hands on experience in collections management and care and help the museum to incorporate Indigenous narratives and perspectives into the museum’s records.