Monday, July 9, 2018 - Anchorage, AK
We'd hoped to get the alignment on the RV worked on today so Mike took it over and I went to the art museum. It's four floors in two wings. They had several temporary exhibits that I worked through as well as the permanent display of the artifacts of the many Native American Tribes in Alaska.
The artifacts were exhibited by tribe, with an explanation of their region, language, customs and history. There were also live videos running in a loop telling the stories of their current existence. Very well done, kept my interest and I could see where there would be something new each visit. It was not suitable for photographs as everything was in protective glass with low lighting.
There was an exhibit called the Inheritance Project that used donated and rescued linens, crochet, needlework to create pieces of art. The donors were asked to record their memories of the maker of the pieces as well. Amazing pieces.
I took in the Aurora Borealis film at the Planetarium and then did the coolest interactive art! The artist, John Grade, built a piece representing earth covered ice heaves, called pingos [isn't that a great scrabble word?] and shared holographic images of the landscape around one that could only be seen with special head mounted viewer. I wandered around that for a good hour!
In 2017 the museum was greatly expanded and they have an exhibit entitled "Unsettled". It references the multiple meanings of the word; unsettled territory and the unsettled native cultures in North America. Fantastic pieces that delivered the message in a multitude of ways. This double image compares the image of Princess Lea from Star Wars to the 1906 photograph of a Native American woman.
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| Things Are Looking Native - Nicholas Gallanin |
And these totem poles were made from golf club bags - the totems of different "tribes"
I loved this artist's idea of preserving the story in a woven piece by weaving a QR code into it. So Madame Defarge!
The last exhibit I got to see was a collaboration between an artist, Ken Johnson, and a geologist Ray Troll, who spent almost a year travelling the Pacific coast from the Arctic to the tip of North America to record the fossil history. It's called "Cruisin' the Fossil Coastline". The artist used cartoon style images to explain the findings - made me want to study geology!
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| North America Crustacean Period |
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| pre-historic dinosaur emerging from fossil bed |
Turns out The RV can't be worked on until Wednesday so I plan to go back to the museum and see the rest of their collection!
