Dommek Jr., an Alaska Native musician and audio producer, talks about building from traditions to create new work. “I think our people are highly innovative,” he says. “We take what we have available and we make it work for what we need. I think that our ancestors would want us to learn all the old songs as much as we can, but they would also want us to write [and] to try to add to the cannon. At one point [their songs] were new and exciting and fresh. I think they would want us to keep it going.”

Nicholai, a Yup’ik singer, dancer and musician from Toksook Bay, Alaska, elaborates on storytelling and knowledge transmission through language and song. New technologies, he suggests, can inspire engagement and pass on language: “I try to create songs to keep the youth of today engaged in listening to traditional language. It’s important to keep the traditions but as James said, we also have to adapt. A question that I asked myself when I started was, “Would our ancestors do this, if they had the same equipment?” I think they would want us to keep the culture alive—the traditional life—but I think they would also want us to adapt.”

Ogina, a songwriter and language expert based in Iqaluktuuttiaq (Cambridge Bay), NU, shares her creative process and touches on the transformation that occurs within language itself. “I begin with what I know and build on it,” she explains. “Traditionally, people who loved to sing would create their own song, [often creating them] as young as possible. And I was asked a few times by Elders if I had created my own song. I did not know how to create the song, I did not know or understand the terms used in traditional songs. . . As I strived to learn, that’s when I started to understand how very specific these characteristic terms are. Learning to create songs was much deeper for me. I’m creating terms [now], the way I think terms were created. You need to be experimental with your language, be innovative with your language, and be adaptive. We have to evolve. Our language was always evolving…”

Each of these artists demonstrate the adaptability and creativity of Inuit art and culture, and various approaches to keeping traditions alive in a way that, as Ayalik describes, “is accessible and exciting for the next generation.”

At the Alaska office of the Arctic Studies Center, staff work together with Alaska Native Elders, knowledge-keepers, artists, educators and cultural organizations on collaborative research, education and outreach programs. They also work with colleagues across Alaska and the Arctic. Their work benefits from the exhibition Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska at the Center’s office within the Anchorage Museum. The exhibition features more than 600 heritage pieces on long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian collections, and it was created in collaboration with Alaska Natives, including research, layout, selected pieces, central videos, text and book essays. For content from the exhibition and programs, and for educational resources and edited webinar videos, please the Learning Lab site “Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska” at  https://learninglab.si.edu/org/sasc-ak.

The video was originally published by the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center on October 15, 2021. Courtesy the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center and the Inuit Art Foundation.

This story is part of the Alaska Spotlight. View more content from the Spotlight here.