The Alutiiq Museum held its annual meeting Aug. 30, despite being closed for major renovations since July of last year.
Instead of holding the meeting in its own building, staff held it in the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge’s visitor center downtown. They displayed new acquisitions like headdresses and masks next to various pamphlets about the museum.
Director of Advancement Djuna Davidson said a few dozen people came to see the new artifacts and hear from staff.
“We are always looking for ways to engage with the community and help them learn about the really cool projects that we’re working on,” she said. “We like to invite people to come and meet our staff.”
Despite the closure, Davidson said staff have kept busy. They’re partnering with Tribes to make a textbook of the Alutiiq language, continuing their archaeology work across the Kodiak Archipelago, and they’re even working on publishing a coffee table book of Native art.
“We’re photographing all of the contemporary Alutiiq artwork in both the (Kodiak) History Museum collection and the Alutiiq Museum collection and so it’s going to be like one of those beautiful photograph books with artist bios,” she said.
The new coffee table book will also have essays on contemporary Alutiiq artwork. Davidson said that’s the last part of the book they need before it will be published.
All of the projects are on top of planning which pieces to display in the museum’s new galleries.
“As people go through and learn the history and the different eras of the past with Alutiiq culture, the last thing they’ll see in our exhibits is the active, living, current culture,” Davidson said. “Helping people know that Alutiiq heritage is a living, breathing culture.”
The Alutiiq Museum is slated to reopen in May 2025.
