Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage

Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska shows how each native nation is unique, and how all are connected. Masterworks of Alaska Native art and design—masks, parkas, beaded garments, basketry, weapons, and carvings—still breathe the lives of their people and embody the lifeways, histories, and cosmologies of northern indigenous communities. They are accompanied by stories and descriptions from distinguished elders, artists, and scholars from Alaska’s native cultures.

Globalizing change has transformed northern communities, yet these objects are interpretable within ongoing cultural frames, articulated in languages still spoken. They were made for a way of life on the land that is enacted today throughout Alaska, even if the material basis for that life has been modified. Dialogue with Alaska’s many native cultures evokes past meanings but focuses equally on contemporary values, practices, and identities. This dialogue across time is the foundation of Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska.  A richly illustrated volume featuring more than 400 Alaska Native masterworks from the Smithsonian's collections. 12.4"l. x 9.3"w. x 1.3"h.

Museum Provenance

Based on a collaborative exhibition by Alaska Native communities, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and the Anchorage Museum, Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage celebrates the return of long-absent cultural treasures to the new Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska.

Every Smithsonian purchase will arrive with a museum provenance card explaining how it is adapted from or inspired by an object or objects in our collection.