MEET THE CURATORS

Sonya Kelliher-Combs

Sonya Kelliher-Combs (b. 1969 Bethel, Alaska; lives Anchorage, Alaska) is an artist of mixed descent: Inupiaq from the Alaska North Slope community of Utqiagvik and Athabascan from the Interior village of Nulato. Her work has been shown in numerous individual and group exhibitions at museums and galleries across the country, including Sakahan (National Gallery of Canada), HIDE: Skin as Material Metaphor (National Museum of American Indian), and SITELINES: Much Wider Than a Line (SITE Santa Fe).

She is a recipient of the prestigious United States Arts Fellowship, Joan Mitchell Fellowship, Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art, and Rasmuson Fellowship, as well as the 2005 Anchorage Mayor’s Award for the Arts and 2010 Alaska Governor’s Individual Artist Award. Her work is included in the collections of the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Anchorage Museum, Alaska State Museum, University of Alaska Museum of the North, Eiteljorg Museum, National Museum of the American Indian, Denver Art Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, British Royal Museum and Montclair Art Museum. She received her BFA from University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and MFA from Arizona State University, Tempe.

Ellen Carrlee

Ellen Carrlee (b. 1973 Sheboygan, Wisconsin; lives Juneau, Alaska) has been the conservator at the Alaska State Museum since 2006. She has been working with Alaskan collections since 2001 and specializes in the care of indigenous and archaeological organic materials. Her research on gut began in 2009, and has prioritized collaboration with Alaska Native experts as well as museum conservation colleagues. She has participated in the processing of viscera from bearded seal, harbor seal, beluga whale, brown bear, black bear, hog, black-tailed deer, coyote, and ptarmigan. Her doctoral dissertation “The Yup’ik Relationships of Qiluliuryaraq (Processing Intestine)” explores the reasons for both decline and resilience of gut as a culturally significant material beyond mere utilitarian explanations. Her research emphasizes networks of relationships among persons both human and non-human, and her practice promotes hands-on engagement with materials alongside indigenous artists and intellectuals. She holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology (University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2020), an M.A. in Art History and Conservation (New York University, 2000), and a B.A. in Art History (University of Wisconsin Madison, 1995).