ISSUE 04 Chatter Marks A journal of the Anchorage Museum, dedicated to creative and critical thinking and ideas of past, present and futures for Northern Regions. Chatter Marks are a series of often crescent-shaped gauges chipped out of the bedrock as a glacier drags rock fragments underneath it. Present since the last ice age, most of the world’s glaciers are now shrinking or disappearing altogether as the climate gets warmer. As they mark the passage of deep time, our landscapes are also indicators of our tomorrow. + images, objects, photographs, sketches and drawings from the following collections including: Anchorage Museum, Alaska State Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of Alaska Anchorage, University of Alaska Museum of the North and Kodiak Historical Society. Also including work from collaborating artists, designers and historical works in the public realm. this issue examines connections between place and people, between Alaska and Russia. It is a collaboration between the Anchorage Museum and the Arctic Art Institute in Arkhangelsk, Russia. Anchorage in the US and Arkhangelsk in Russia are cities of similar populations and latitudes. ARTISTS TRANSLATION ASH ADAMS MARIA RUCHYEVAYA BRIAN ADAMS EVGENIA TANASEICHUK KATIE BASILE EKATERINA SHAROVA ANNA HOOVER SONYA KELIHER-COMBS CONSULTANT AMY MEISSNER MAREK RANIS DARIA ORLOVA ULYANA PODKORYTOVA PROJECT PARTNERS IGOR SAMOLET ANCHORAGE MUSEUM, JULIE DECKER USTINA YAKOVLEVA ARCTIC ART INSTITUTE, EKATERINA SHAROVA SERGEY ZHIGALTSOV ESSAYISTS/ARTISTS EVGENIA ARBUGAEVA ARCACIA JOHNSON TIMO JOKELA EKATERINA SHAROVA NIKOLAY SMIRNOV Amy Meissner Birth Rope (detail), 2018 Welcome to the fourth issue of Chatter Marks. Designer: Karen Larsen for the Anchorage Museum. Discarded marine rope, silk organza, Made possible, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. vintage doilies, acrylic, thread 77” L x 24” W x 24” D © 2021 Anchorage Museum Photo: Brian Adams Brian Adams 2 Kaktovik, Alaska, 2015 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Marie Rexford of Kaktovik, Alaska preparing maktak for the villages Thanksgiving Day feast 0 From the I AM INUIT series , ALYASKA , ALYASKA 2 АЛЯСКА 1 SUMMBER A CKA, ALYASKA This project connects Alaska and Russia through the work of contemporary artists, who examine landscape, identity, gender, personal narratives, memories, monuments, and colonization through their work. It is both a continuation and a beginning of connections between people and place. The artists featured here have begun conversations with each other over Zoom through a global pandemic, with virtual studio visits and exchange, and share their work and perspectives here to ignite interest and investigation into issues and to instigate new collaborations. Through their images, we can begin to see a connected landscape and connected concerns. The shared narratives cross boundaries, borders, histories, and geopolitics. Art has long been a tie between place and people, something that can be exchanged and shared, despite perceived barriers of language and culture. We hope that this project is a spark to ideas of how we can embrace the human experience regardless of how remote or distant we might seem. Northern places have shared histories of colonization, extreme landscapes, endurance, Indigeneity, adaptation, and resilience. The landscapes that connect Alaska and Siberia are part of an international, Circumpolar North and Arctic. In these landscapes we recognize each other, recognize a shared experience and a place that is not disconnected, but parts of a whole. Cartoon Ridiculing US Purchase of Alaska Political cartoon by Frank Bellew ridiculing the were constructed in Alaska. The pace was so extreme Arctic conditions. Populated areas Russian Federation. 1867 purchase of Alaska by the U.S. from Russia. rapid that some military installations were of Alaska and Northern Russia experience Courtesy of Getty Images, Bittman Collection abandoned when it became apparent that some of the coldest recorded temperatures Today INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION they would be obsolete before they were in the world. Both cherished and lamented, Today there is talk of new connections, completed. Over half of all the intercepts of cold nourishes the identity of both places. despite an increase in military buildup in Soviet aircraft that took place from Alaska The landscapes of Alaska and Siberia both the Arctic. The InterContinental Railway is military bases took place during the 1980s. have the boreal forest, the world's largest one transportation connection that has been , ALYASKA , ALYASKA land-based biome, representing 29 percent discussed for years. The project would build The paranoia and hostility on both sides of the world’s forest cover. Spreading over more than 5,000 miles of new railroad to АЛЯСКА led to a total closure of the narrow border continents and covering many countries, the connect North America with Russia and Asia between the Soviet Union and the U.S. boreal forest plays a significant role in the via Alaska and a 60-mile tunnel under the across the Bering Strait where the Diomede planet's biodiversity and climate. In Russia, Bering Strait. Islands—Big Diomede (Russia) and Little the boreal forest is known as taiga. The boreal Diomede (U.S.)—are only 2.4 miles apart. forest covers most of inland Canada and Youth, artists, Indigenous communities, The militarized border was known as the "Ice Alaska, most of Sweden, Finland and inland and others have a strong interest in bridging Curtain.” No regular passenger air or boat Norway, much of Russia, and the northern political divides between people and traffic was allowed by either side. Indigenous parts of Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Japan. place, with a shared goal of a peaceful and families were cut off. Although limited private sustainable future for Northern regions. travel across the Bering Strait resumed in For thousands of years, indigenous people Climate change prompts a new imperative 1990, it still requires special permits by U.S. have lived between the two continents for working together across borders and for authorities and their Russian counterparts. now known as Russia and the U.S. For connecting landscapes. The boreal forest, thousands of years, Indigenous peoples of melting sea ice and rising sea levels are not As political relations between the Soviet the Bering Strait region traveled its waters about borders or bounty, but food security, Union and United States improved in freely in walrus-skin boats to hunt marine human and animal survival, and the future of the late 1980s, Alaska was the first to mammals and visit relatives. The Soviet not just Arctic but global communities. experience the thaw in the Cold War. On government in 1938 formally recognized Context & Histories primary interest was fur. The Unanga people A statue of Alexander Andreyevich Baranov August 6, 1989, two MIG-29 fighter aircraft the legitimacy of Indigenous peoples We hope this project is part of an Alaska is a two-way mirror through which were often forced into slavery to hunt fur- in Sitka, Alaska, was relocated from its and an AN-225 cargo aircraft made a traveling across the international date examination of stereotypes and perceptions, Russia and the United States have watched bearing marine animals for Russian traders original site in 2020 after protests related refueling stop at Elmendorf Air Force Base line, requiring them only to check in with posting critical questions and prompting us each other for 150 years across the Bering supported by the Russian government. to the removal of monuments that express in Anchorage as they made their way to an local border guards. As relations soured to think about the ways we are one, despite Strait, just 55 miles at its narrowest point. An estimated 80 percent of the Unanga colonial histories and ideologies and the air show in Canada. This was the first time between the Soviet Union and the U.S. after many miles and many histories in between. The International Dateline is crossed on the population died from diseases against which oppression of Indigenous peoples. since World War II that a Soviet military World War II, both governments closed the way, creating a 20-hour time shift. Since the they had no immunity. Russians moved Traveling to Alaska in the late 1700s, aircraft had made such a landing in Alaska. border to personal travel. This is a project born out of a collaboration U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, onward to Kodiak, ill-treating the Koniags, Baranov established a trading post in Sitka, between the Anchorage Museum and the the US and Russia have been connected by then to Southeast Alaska, where the Tlingit which was destroyed by Tlingit clans three Beyond the Cold War, the idea of cold After the end of the Soviet Union, both Arctic Art Institute, connecting artists, history, religion, climate, and landscape, waged war on the Russians into the 1850s. years later. He returned and attacked the connects Alaska and Russia’s Northern the American and Russian governments institutions, and countries. while divided by politics, language, and even Kiks.ádi fort in the Battle of 1804. After regions. Cold in Alaska and Russia is more decided to organize a twinning of two Alaska time—today in Alaska is tomorrow in the Russian lore maintains that Russian resisting for days and when they lost their than physical––it is historical, cultural, and national parks—the Krusenstern Park and We thank the artist participants, those featured nearest part of Russia. settlement of Alaska pre-dates Vitus gunpowder supply, the Kiks.ádi were forced mythic. In places like Alaska and Siberia, the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve— in this journal as well as others who have been Bering’s discoveries in 1741. At least three to relocate to the east side of the island. people have learned to adapt and thrive in with the Chukotka National Park in the part of collaborations and conversations, and For less than two cents an acre, the U.S.