ASM Exhibitions & Events

December 6, 2024 - March 15, 2025

Sharing the World I Know is a new solo exhibition featuring quilt works by Fairbanks art quilter Ree Nancarrow. 

For 50 years, Nancarrow watched a small tundra pond outside her window called Deneki Lakes. She tracked the shifting habitat at the lake as the water level dropped over time. Fewer species live there now. 

In 2010, Nancarrow started working with scientists through a program called In a Time of Change, which supports collaboration across the environmental arts, humanities, and sciences in Alaska. She explains how this collaboration informed her work: “The knowledge and deeper understanding of the natural world gained from working with these scientists has changed how I see the world, and how I describe it visually. That knowledge and concern for the world I live in led me to tell stories of climate change such as wildland fire, permafrost melt, development of greenhouse gases, bark beetle infestations, and creation of methane bubbles.”

She makes her quilts with custom-printed fabric. The fabric features images and designs she has collected and created over her art career. She sews them together and quilts each piece with intricate designs, enhancing their rich imagery and detail.

Both the exhibit opening and lecture are free. The exhibit runs through March 15, 2025.

Image: Ancient Dwellers by Ree Nancarrow

Ree is one of six artists selected for the Alaska State Museum 2024–2026 Solo Artist Exhibition Series, along with artists Myesha Callahan Freet, Shgendootan George, Joel Isaak Łiq’a yes, Golga Oscar, and Tamara Wilson.

November 1, 2024 - January 11, 2025

Honoring the Ordinary is an exhibition of works by Dena’ina multidisciplinary artist Joel Isaak Łiq'a yes of Kenai. The installation Honoring the Ordinary creates opportunities for moments of discovery, intrigue, and possibly discomfort by considering the survivance of Salmon Culture in Alaska today.

For those who have never experienced a strong salmon run, this installation creates an opportunity to immerse in the sensory experience of salmon culture. For those losing access to salmon because the salmon can no longer return, this installation provides a way to honor the salmon, the people, and the cultures that have shaped one another for thousands of years. This exhibit brings the outdoors into the gallery space, recognizing Alaska's connection to salmon as something to be honored, cherished, and protected. 

Joel is one of six artists selected for the Alaska State Museum 2024-2026 Solo Artist Exhibition Series along with Myesha Callahan Freet, Shgendootan George, Ree Nancarrow, Golga Oscar, and Tamara Wilson.

Lou Logan is making a qayaq (kayak) in the tradition of his Iñupiaq ancestors from Wales, Alaska. He is studying a qayaq frame in the museum’s collection and constructing his open-sea qayaq in the gallery. 

Images: Lou Logan. Photo by Molly Briggs. Logan’s iqyax^ (Unangan kayak), 2020. Photo courtesy of Lou Logan.

XX: Twenty Years of Alaskan Art is a new exhibition at the Alaska State Museum featuring the work of contemporary Alaskan artists. The exhibit opens Friday, March 1.

The museum acquired these pieces over the last twenty years though the generosity of the Rasmuson Foundation’s Alaska Art Fund.

Initiated in 2003, the Alaska Art Fund provides grants for Alaska museums to purchase current work by practicing Alaskan artists.

Thanks to the Fund, the Alaska State Museum has brought over 200 works of art valued at nearly half a million dollars into its permanent collection—the most significant donation over time, in terms of dollar value, in the museum’s 124-year history.

The Alaska Art Fund is managed by Museums Alaska and has donated over $6.7 million dollars to museums statewide for the purchase of art.