A Journey to What Matters: Increased Alaska Native Art & Culture
Alaska Native Cultural Heritage and Artistic Sovereignty in Museums
Project Grant
Access to Alaska Native Collections
with Anchorage Museum
The Kodiak Alutiiq Dancers were thrilled to be awarded a grant from the Access to Alaska Native Collections Fund supported by The CIRI Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation. We traveled Kodiak with eight members of our dance group. We prioritized bringing our Sugpiaq artists who make regalia and instruments for our dancers, including garments, jewelry, hats, masks, beaded or fur headdresses, slippers, dance bags, rattles, whistles, and drums.
We were especially interested in viewing our ancestral Sugpiaq objects in the Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage exhibit, which are housed in the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center gallery at the Anchorage Museum. Over the course of our visit, our artists looked at 28 Sugpiaq artifacts from the collections vault and closely examine the objects that are on display, as the staff at the Anchorage Museum opened the cases during closed hours to let us connect with our ancestors’ belongings.
Being able to study the objects our ancestors made was incredibly moving for our artists. Dancers reported feeling a new sense of inspiration and motivation to make instruments, artwork, and regalia for the dancers. Artists especially appreciated being able to study the way that our ancestors manufactured these objects, including techniques used in sewing, carving, and lashing.
As outlined in the Kodiak Alutiiq Dancers’ strategic plan, our dance program exists to encourage learning of the Sugpiaq/Alutiiq culture through song and dance and to share the culture with the public through dance and performance. The Access to Alaska Native Collections Fund project perfectly aligns with the goals we have for ourselves and for our community. We are extremely grateful to have been selected to participate in this program, and many of our artists have already begun to make artwork inspired by pieces they saw in the Anchorage Museum collection. Quyanaasinaq – thank you very much to Museums Alaska and to the CIRI Foundation, and the Henry Luce Foundation for this opportunity, and to Monica Shaw and her team at the Anchorage Museum staff for welcoming us into the space.
The CIRI Foundation is partnering with Museums Alaska to support the Access to Alaska Native Collections program. This program connects Alaska Native artists with museum collections by supporting research visits to storage areas in Alaska.