The Place I Call Home reflects the people, places, textures, and moods photographer Jovell Rennie associates with his hometown of Anchorage, Alaska. Born in Trinidad and raised mostly in Alaska, Rennie reveals varied facets of millennial life in Alaska’s largest urban center through his photographs: wild landscapes glimpsed through the window of a car, portraits of friends, snapshots of strip malls, parking lots and other overlooked corners of the city. The Place I Call Home is about friendship as a process of creative exchange, the freedom of wild spaces, and the sense of beauty that emerges from taking a closer look at our most intimate everyday surroundings.

Included within the exhibition is an edition of prints on t-shirts, as well as a display of disposable camera photos taken by Rennie’s friends and acquaintances. As an early adopter of Instagram, a street-wear fanatic, and a collector of analog cameras, Rennie has developed an aesthetic in formed by urban trends, the democratic appeal of social media, and the approachability of lo-fi camera technologies.

“I don’t think that there’s such a thing as the ‘perfect camera’ or that you need something fancy to make compelling images,” Rennie says of his love of analog cameras and the photographic process of discovery. “But I do understand the joy of using something that feels just right in your hands. Ultimately, the best camera to take photos with is whatever you have access too. The heart of an image comes from curiosity, not the equipment that was used to make it. Curiosity of your surroundings, of your community, and of yourself.”

This exhibition is a continuation of a series of programs titled Black Lives in Alaska: Journey, Justice, Joy and connects to the Rasmuson Foundation's project Black in Alaska.

Organized by the Anchorage Museum under various titles and forms for more than 30 years, Alaska Biennial celebrates place through the lens of contemporary art and encourages the creation of new works by Alaska artists.

The artworks on view are created by artists from across the state, in media including drawing, painting, mixed media, craft, jewelry, fiber art, visual art, metalsmithing, printmaking, encaustic, ceramic, book/paper arts, and photography. Written work, sound art, and performance art are new additions to the biennial this year.

Alaska Biennial is organized by the Anchorage Museum with support from Alaska State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, the Municipality of Anchorage, Anchorage Museum Association and Anchorage Museum Foundation Alaska Airlines Silver Anniversary Fund.

Produced during the inaugural Alaska Native Filmmakers Intensive, Stories for Climate Justice presents a selection of films examining how Indigenous Alaskans are responding to the impacts of climate change on their homelands and communities.

Climate change is experienced in different ways across Alaska, and its impacts are felt disproportionately by Indigenous communities, particularly in the Arctic. Stories for Climate Justice presents a selection of films examining how Indigenous Alaskans witness and respond to the impacts of climate change on their homelands and communities. 

Participants in the inaugural Alaska Native Filmmakers Intensive live across Alaska, and their films engage with locations near and far—from St. Paul Island to Fairbanks, from the shrinking glaciers of Southeast Alaska to the drought-ridden deserts of the southwestern United States. Each filmmaker examines the interconnection between their own personal histories, issues impacting their communities, and generational connections to place as they reflect on their relationship with the lands and waters of Alaska.  

Indigenous filmmakers practice narrative sovereignty when they tell their own stories rooted in cultural knowledge, and often directly to their own communities. By centering Indigenous voices and concerns, more-than-human kinship, and intergenerational knowledge shared through oral history, these films present an alternative to dominant narratives of climate change typically shown in mainstream media. It is essential that Indigenous communities have platforms to share the impacts of climate change on their cultures, communities, and lands, and that these perspectives are integrated into our understanding of—and fight against—the climate crisis.  

The Alaska Native Filmmakers Intensive, a partnership between Native Movement and the University of Alaska Fairbanks Department of Theatre and Film, aims to expand access for Alaska Native creatives in digital media production.

In times of pandemic, climate crisis, and ongoing assaults to human rights, how are Indigenous Alaska artists today strengthening self and community, and guiding the next generation from surviving to thriving?  Protection: Adaptation and Resistance centers Indigenous ways of knowing. Working within intergenerational learning groups and as collaborators in vibrant community networks, Alaska’s Indigenous artists are invigorating traditional stories in customary arts and proposing resilient futures through design, tattoo, regalia and graphic arts. Artist projects elevate collaboration, allyship, and community as tools of resistance, adaptation, and cultural affirmation. The exhibition explores three themes: Land and Culture Protectors, Activists for Justice and Sovereignty and Resilient Futures.

'Our lifeways, material culture, and protocols serve as armor to resist efforts to exterminate us. They are rooted in the power to unite and create space for all people. When we break down the efforts of those who work to silo, segregate, and discriminate, there is space for all people and all living things.'
— Joel Isaak (Dena’ina)

Water Moves Life is a multi-site-specific work exploring the linked forces of a changing climate and rising inequality. Bronze forms replicating mass-produced plastic jugs paired with the sound of flowing water and police radio chatter braid together allusions to freedom, survival, containment, and control.

Plastic jugs are both mundane products of global capitalism and tools for survival amidst climate change. As containers for carrying life-sustaining clean water, they are often used by people in situations of extreme precarity: migrants making dangerous journeys as well as political refugees and victims of climate disasters. By casting such utilitarian objects in bronze, a material traditionally used to fabricate large-scale monuments, the artists create vessels that prompt viewers to consider the precariousness of life on Earth and the way compounding inequalities of today might affect future generations.

Layers of sound juxtaposing flowing water with man-made sounds of surveillance and control emphasize the ways humans have disconnected themselves from the laws of the natural world. They serve as a reminder that all life follows water: it flows freely and cannot be easily contained.

Water Moves Life is a project of the Anchorage Museum. The main installation at the Anchorage Museum is complemented by satellite locations at Cuddy Family Midtown Park in Anchorage, near Fish Creek, as well as at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau. The State Museum sits on the land of Aak’w Kwáan at the place known as Dzantik’i Héeni, or “precious water for the starry flounder,” as translated by Tlingit elder Dan Katzeek.

Collectively, Water Moves Life installations and programming highlight broad issues associated with water, including climate justice, the interconnection of different species with water, efforts to restore and revitalize water-based ecosystems, and Indigenous relationships with water.

The Water Moves Life project is part of a broad creative outreach project that is developed as a series of temporary installations in cities in Alaska highlighting work of contemporary Alaska artists and featuring durable artworks placed in public spaces that are accessible and populated. The Anchorage Museum has been working with project collaborators to identify a series of sites that are safe, visible, and help shift the paradigm of art in public space. 

The sites selected for installation serve as rendezvous points for water-based community programming, including small gatherings and interventions will be conducted by the Anchorage Museum, collaborating artists, and community partners, to highlight local waterways, the importance of water in sustaining life, and the relationship of ecosystem health.

Other installations sites for Water Moves Life include Cuddy Family Park in midtown Anchorage and Alaska State Museum in Juneau. 

This project is made possible, in part, with support from the VIA Art Fund: Visionary Initiatives in Art and the National Endowment for the Arts.

How polar bears interact with humans in times of climate change is the focus of this exhibition by Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson, whose socially engaged and research-based collaborations are informed by artists, historians, ecologists, folklorists and zoologists.

Presented through a variety of media, including video, photographs, collage, drawings, zoological remains, and glass sculptures of polar bear dens in miniature scale. Visitations focuses on the effects climate change, population displacement and environmental disruption have had on polar bear encounters in Iceland.

The exhibition is based on Visitations: Polar Bears Out of Place, a three-year research project run by Icelandic and international universities, galleries and museums to contribute to a growing body of knowledge concerning human/non-human relations and habitat in a time of global warming and rising sea levels. The resulting exhibition surfaces the paradox and conflict that often arise when bear meets human in a shared and complex world.

"The art exists with the conversation." - Mark Wilson

Visitations is funded, in part, by Rannis – The Icelandic Centre for Research.

Enter a playground of sound through an all-ages music and sound experience that celebrates contemporary Alaska sound art and music. In Pass the Mic, visitors are immersed in the power of sound through a sonic exploration of the genres, modes and styles that make up the soundtrack of Alaska. Spanning nearly the entire third floor of the museum, this interactive sound experience offers visitors the chance to listen to, create, or interact with sound. Pass the Mic features music from Alaska music makers and sound artists and was developed in collaboration with Alaska’s home-grown Grammy-award-winning rock band Portugal. The Man. An in-gallery music main stage hosts live and recorded performances, along with public programming offered throughout Pass the Mic’s yearlong run.

Experiential spaces throughout the museum’s third-floor gallery include:

Sound garden 
Become a soundscape ecologist as you immerse yourself in the natural sounds of Alaska through a blending animal, people and earth sounds gathered near Campbell Creek Science Center. Soundscapes in this gallery vary hourly and seasonally.

Remix studio
Release your inner DJ by spinning and scratching with samples from Alaska musicians. Remix and rearrange existing sounds into something new with a tempo change or sound effect. Go solo or challenge a friend to remix battle. A digitally projected audience reacts as volumes and beats change.

Press Play
Slip on some headphones at one of five audio kiosks and listen to curated playlists of Alaska music from 1950 to today.

Play the Room
Create music with your body using motion-capture technology. Dance, shake, slow down or speed up to literally “play” the room like a musical instrument. Go solo or join with friends to create your unique sound. Tones in this room were selected with input from the Alaska Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

On Air
Appreciate the wonder of radio waves. Tune into a rotating set of stations broadcasting news, forecasts, personal messages, cultural content, and songs from past and present selected by guest curator and journalist Tripp J Crouse. Use your voice at an interactive broadcast station to transmit your own secret message across the gallery space.

Mainstage
Listen to live and recorded performances or watch music videos at this in-gallery stage. Find the current line-up on the museum’s online calendar at anchoragemuseum.org.

The Loop Lounge
Sit down and settle in as you listen to a rotating selection of albums by Alaska musicians as they unfold track by track.

Take the Stage
Grab the mic, it’s karaoke time! Song track selections include classic tunes from national acts who have performed at the Alaska State Fair.

Rotating in-gallery content for Pass the Mic was created with input from Alaska musicians, audiophiles, service organizations, and community members, including Matthew Burtner, Tripp J Crouse, Aaron Leggett, Alex Sallee, Kimberly Waller, and Maria Williams and to the Alaska Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired.