Alaskans’ experiences with climate change are often marked by loss and devastation. A new exhibit at the Anchorage Museum explores another side to climate change, with stories of resilience and hope.
The exhibit, “How to Survive,” combines work from within and outside Alaska that highlights how investing in community and caring for one another can be forms of climate mitigation.
As the Arctic warms more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, Alaska is no stranger to the impacts: permafrost thaw and erosion eat away at coastal communities, thousands of people contend with the loss of core subsistence species. The risks from other disasters — fires, floods, landslides — is increasing.
“Climate change is so palpable here,” said Francesca DuBrock, the museum’s chief curator. “You can feel it in your bones, on your skin. It’s very scary.”
But she said there’s more than just tragedy. Embedded in these stories are examples of strength. She set out to create an exhibit to tell that side of the story.
“Within stories of how Alaskans are grappling with this change, there are so many amazing stories and amazing people here who are doing really incredible work, finding ways through and finding ways to adapt,” DuBrock said.
DuBrock and her team spent months putting together “How to Survive.” The name was inspired by a quote from Grace Lee Boggs, a Chinese-American civil rights and labor rights activist: “The only way to survive is by taking care of one another.”
“This exhibition kind of grew out of … thinking about this idea of care, and survival through care,” DuBrock said.
Those themes of care and community are seen throughout the exhibit, which opened in October.
In one part of it, portraits and audio clips comprising the Community Climate Archive document how Alaskans have seen their environment change, and what makes them hopeful.
In one clip, Koyukon Dené climate activist Brittany Woods-Orrison says she draws strength from her family history and fellow activists.
“What gives me most hope in all that’s happening is my community that I spend day-in, day-out with, reconnecting with the land and caring for one another,” Woods-Orrison says in a recording. “That’s where I see the most change happening.”
Further into the exhibit, a pair of installations by Koyukon Dené and Iñupiaq artist Erin Gingrich features carved white-bellied salmon swimming upstream through beaded river currents. Gingrich said she was inspired watching salmon swim upstream in Ship Creek, not far from the museum in downtown Anchorage.
“It was such a beautiful experience, it just made me feel so lucky,” she said. “I felt very secure in my place seeing them return to us.”
On the opposite wall, Gingrich placed carved ptarmigan, white in their winter plumage, perched under willow branches.
Both pieces center on the relationship among humans, animals and the land they live on, she said.
“The things that we harvest are gifts. The animals that give themselves to us are gifts, and we must care for them in reciprocity for that gift,” Gingrich said.
Beyond the themes in the artwork, DuBrock, the curator, said her team also spent time reevaluating how they design the exhibits themselves to be more sustainable.
The team printed descriptions of the art on cardboard placards — easily recyclable, unlike vinyl — and helped artists to design their work with materials sourced locally. Certain pieces were designed to be easily removed and displayed elsewhere after the exhibit closes.
“Pretty much every step of this exhibition, it was like, ‘How do we make this live for longer? How can this have another life after? What are the materials we’re using? And how can we think about this more thoughtfully?’” DuBrock said.
Many parts of “How to Survive” will continue to live digitally online, including the Community Climate Archive and a library of books on environmental justice, climate anxiety and other topics.
The physical exhibit at the Anchorage Museum runs for the next year, until January 2025.
Kavitha George is Alaska Public Media’s climate change reporter. Reach her at kgeorge@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Kavitha here.
