Nacheyakda'ina (Our Ancestors) Exhibition Project

Alaska Native Heritage Center will organize and present a multi-year exhibition titled Nacheyakda'ina (meaning “our ancestors” in Dena’ina Athabascan) comprising a wide array of Alaska Native art on long-term loan from U.S. museums. Envisioned as a homecoming for these cultural objects to their communities of origin, the project aims to revitalize Alaska Native cultures and endangered art forms and promote healing from the cross-generational violence and forced assimilation wrought by colonization. Addressing the unethical removal of cultural objects from Alaska Native communities by government and religious entities and individuals throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the project will model reparative practices, working to shift the perspectives of non-Native people and providing a methodological steppingstone towards the ethical repatriation of objects. Guided by the museum’s Cultural Advisory Committees, project work will prioritize the well-being of Native Alaskan communities, share restorative histories, offer classes led by Native artists, and build a new generation of Native curators.