Heritage

Llangaklluku Lucillerpet Cuumi: Becoming Aware of Our Beginnings

This multiyear project was funded through the National Endowment for Humanites and has the goal to locate, identify, photograph, research, and disseminate information about objects from the Chugach region that currently reside in museums worldwide. This project came about as a means to redress the loss of cultural patrimony within the Chugach Region and will represent for the first time the world’s combined Chugach collections as the sole object of study, and will be exhibited in their entirety.

Museums housing artifacts from the Region were identified and contacted in order to request collaboration and the opportunity to visit and view these items. The Heritage Department Director and Elders from the Region then visited these museums from around the world to see, photograph, and learn about these cultural objects and how they ended up in the current collections. They are being uploaded to a database as a way for the Region and researchers to access these photos and information.

In the Fall of 2015, Derenty Tabios, John Johnson, Virginia Lacy, and Helen Morris visited the Staatliche Museum (Ethnographic Museum) in Berlin, Germany; the Kulttuurien Museo (Museum of Cultures) in Helsinki, Finland; and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In Spring of 2016, Arthur Tabios, Barclay Kopchak, Derenty Tabios, Susan LaBelle, John Johnson, Helen Morris, and a student traveled to the Ethnographic Collections of the British Museum in London, England; the Museo de America (Museum of America) in Madrid, Spain; and the Hearst Museum in Berkley, California.

In the Spring of 2017, Diane Selanoff, John Johnson, Sperry Ash, and Helen Morris visited the Kuntskamera (Art Chamber of Peter the Great) in St. Petersburg, Russia; and the British Museum in London, England.

Grant completion March 31, 2017