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LISTEN: Why an Alaska artist made a 12-foot kuspuk featuring the faces of missing and murdered Native women

A 12-foot-tall kuspuk featuring portraits of 250 missing or murdered Indigenous women is presented on stage at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Fairbanks, Oct. 17, 2019. (Photo by Casey Grove/Alaska Public Media)
A 12-foot-tall kuspuk featuring portraits of 250 missing or murdered Indigenous women is presented on stage at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Fairbanks, Oct. 17, 2019. (Photo by Casey Grove/Alaska Public Media)

On the first day of the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Fairbanks, Alaska Native artist Amber Webb presented a giant kuspuk bearing the images of dozens of Indigenous women who went missing or were murdered.

Webb says the 12-foot-tall kuspuk is large so it can include the portraits of 250 Native women missing or killed in the U.S and Canada.

Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org.